United Transfer Technologies BV unveils major environmental initiatives

United Transfer Technologies BV, a specialist supplier of high-quality hot and cold transfer products and services for the printing and packaging industry based in Waalwijk, the Netherlands, has completely realigned itself over the past few years in a future-oriented and environmentally friendly manner. The company has now expanded its product range to include more environmentally friendly transfer products, introduced additional recycling solutions and reaffirmed its position as a provider of environmentally friendly transfer solutions.

Back in 2018, the management decided to build a new, environmentally friendly and state-of-the-art headquarters in Waalwijk, the Netherlands, which is equipped with one of the most modern spooling and slitting centers in Europe, state-of-the-art and highly ergonomic processing machines, its own laboratory and one of the largest and best-equipped automated high-bay warehouses in this market segment in Europe and was ready for occupancy in 2021. The company's new headquarters is designed as a zero-net-energy building, which means that the company operates completely self-sufficiently at its site throughout the year and does not consume any energy for the building infrastructure.

The finishing products offered by United Transfer Technologies BV for hot and cold transfer, which are primarily used in the printing and packaging industry, are already classified as fully recyclable by their very nature. During the transfer process, only the thinnest layers of lacquer and metallization are applied to the printed products. Including the metallization layer, these layers are just 50 nanometres thick and even with a full-surface finish, this process only transfers a coating of 1.65 g/m2 - and therefore less than is applied in the polygraphic printing and coating process - to the printed product. Films are not transferred to the printed and packaging product. These thinnest layers are therefore also demonstrably completely deinkable and recyclable in the waste paper and cardboard cycle. However, the company is also aware of its responsibility as an industrial supplier and was also looking for solutions to keep the carrier rolls required for the transport, transfer and application process of these transfer layers, which are mostly made of PET and cannot be reused after the industrial transfer process, in the material cycle and to minimize the use of PET. The company has now come up with two solutions for this.

Reduction of PET through the use of thinner carrier films

In order to sustainably reduce the use of PET, the company has been working with its suppliers over the past few years on the production of cold transfer products on thinner carrier materials and has now brought these to market maturity. The special thing about these new products is that the company has managed to increase the quality of these new transfer products while simultaneously reducing the film carrier. These new and more environmentally friendly series are characterized by an even better transfer performance with higher gloss, higher opacity, very high edge and detail sharpness and high tear resistance. At the same time, these products allow reduced set-up times, even greater process reliability, reduced adhesive consumption with high flatness. And they are ideal for very high production speeds and structured substrates. For the environment, the use of these new products means that less PET is used in the overall process and therefore less waste is produced. In addition, the higher yield, lower weight, delivery weight and delivery volume per running meter and therefore a better carrier/benefit ratio mean that these new products now also enable a reduction in CO2 throughout the entire delivery chain as well as lower recycling costs and effort. And thanks to the lower weight per running meter, these products also contribute to better workplace ergonomics. The company is now offering the new cold transfer products under the name CF-LIGHT. The products in the CF-LIGHT series are currently available on 10 μm carrier films. Products on even thinner carrier films such as 6μm are currently being tested and will also be added to the United Transfer Technologies BV product portfolio in the near future.

Reusable/Recycling/ReCompound

United Transfer Technologies BV has also been working on environmentally friendly solutions for its industrial customers in the field of recycling in recent years. For several years now, the company has been advising its customers on the possibilities of keeping packaging materials and auxiliary materials required for the transportation and storage of the company's transfer products in the industrial cycle as reusable packaging or recycling them in an environmentally friendly manner. In particular, the company takes back the end boards and cardboard outer packaging and pallets required to protect the transfer rolls in consultation with its customers and keeps them in the industrial cycle. This saves resources and protects the environment.

The Dutch company has now also found solutions for recycling the PET carrier rolls required. Together with certified European recycling partners, United Transfer Technologies BV takes back PET carrier rolls from offset cold transfer at the customer's request, has them processed into a PET re-compound and then uses this rPET by its suppliers to produce new end boards. In this way, the company has not only found an adequate PET recycling solution, but also keeps the PET used in its own industrial cycle. The company's customers receive corresponding recycling certificates for all recycled PET carrier rolls.

Fons van Delft, Managing Director of United Transfer Technologies BV, on the company's successful environmental protection measures: "We at United Transfer Technologies BV are absolutely aware of our social responsibility and for years have spared neither effort nor expense to work as environmentally friendly as possible and to offer our customers solutions for the sustainable and uncompromising use of our products. Of course, in all these solutions we make sure that neither the product quality nor the service quality of our products and our company suffer as a result. We are therefore delighted that we have been able to further improve the quality of our products by implementing and increasing our environmental protection measures and can now offer our customers solutions to almost all questions relating to the environmental compatibility of our products and thus a clear conscience in their daily use."

Miro Ivsan, Sales & Product Management Cold Transfer at United Transfer Technologies BV, adds: "In order to demonstrate the enormous increase in quality and the scope of our environmental protection measures in detail, we are now offering our customers not only the provision of test rolls from our new CF-LIGHT series, but also special training courses on the use of this new product series on the customer's own printing and finishing systems. We are also happy to advise our customers on site at these events on the exact processes and specifications for the environmentally friendly return and environmentally friendly and certified recycling of our CF carrier rolls."

Further information: www.unitedtransfer.com