Tesa is a manufacturer of adhesive tapes, they are an international company and they have been experimenting and producing innovative designs for adhesive tapes and self-adhesive product solutions for a while. Most recently they have manufactured a new kind of tape and this time it is also recyclable.

The new product, tesa 51345 is an adhesive tape specifically designed to be recyclable, whilst remaining effectively adhesive, this allows it to perform its purpose of reinforcing packaging or cartons, whilst also being an incredibly sustainable material. The innovative tape’s role is to reinforce a particular packaging or carton at sensitive points, like a package’s handles or its corners. The tape is also available for corrugated board manufacturers.

The benefits of this product can be seen in the way the tape performs in an almost identical way to everyday film-based tapes, despite being based on paper, but it also comes with advantages such as sustainability, recyclability and solvent-free adhesive. This makes it a much more environmentally friendly product and as it can be applied during a product’s production process, it can also make the manufacturing process greener, as well as the product. The tape can also be applied after the production process, meaning all packages are able to use an eco-friendly alternative material to reinforce their structure.

This groundbreaking product is a development which follows a previous release of a similar product from Tesa. Before tesa 51345, the company unveiled tesa 51344 at the beginning of 2023. This product was similar to the newly released version of the tape, except for a couple of minor details. Tesa 51344 is still paper-based, but it is a tear strip for cartons and packaging. The creation of the paper-based adhesive tape makes tesa one of the few stand-out manufacturers, who offers a solution to unsustainable tape and therefore provides the packaging and manufacturers who utilise it with a greener manufacturing process.

Furthermore, the tape showcases tesa’s most prominent goals, which centre around sustainability. One of these goals involves tesa’s aim to increase the amount of recycled and bio-based materials present in all products by 70% by 2030. Alongside this, the company also hopes to halve the use of non-recycled fossil-based plastic.

Corporate Marketing Director Industrial Markets at tesa, Frank Domann, commented, "Packaging and shipment of items continues to rise - with a growing preference for light and more sustainable packaging. Achieving optimal balance between the reduction of material thickness and adequate strength and protection for packaged goods is paramount. This is precisely where our new tesa® 51345 comes in: reinforcement adhesive tapes provide added strength to lighter packaging and cartons, particularly in critical stress areas. Our adhesive tape solution also contributes to achieve more sustainability in the packaging industry, as the tape has been produced using a solvent-free coating process with a paper backing from sustainably managed sources and a 100% recycled paper core. And the best part: it can be disposed of together with the cardboard material without affecting the recycling process.”