By bringing industry stakeholders together, the USPS solved one of its “stickier” recycling problems, but more importantly, it modeled how the industry can cooperate to facilitate recycling.
Pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSA), such as stamps, on paper “gum” up the works and make recycling difficult. When they are introduced into the paper-recycling stream, they break down into small particles called “stickies.” Stickies can adhere to wires and felts in the equipment, resulting in costly downtime for cleaning and repairing. Paper recyclers have been reluctant to accept waste paper that has a high PSA content.
In 1994, the USPS initiated the Environmentally Benign Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Program to develop stamp adhesives that can be easily recycled. Although the focus was on stamps, the adhesives developed through this extensive joint effort will lower costs for recycling and repulping operations in general, make paper recycling much more economical. Out of an initial group of 42 adhesive samples, 10 adhesives were chosen to undergo full-scale testing and production runs at various recycling mills.
Industry participants came from all segments of this diverse industry: researchers from government and industry, including members of the Forest Products Laboratory (U. S. Department of Agriculture), the adhesive industry, paper manufacturers, recyclers, printers, and testing laboratories.
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