Product labels

Today I wanted to design a product label to stick on the products we want to make from recycled plastic. Because the products price must be as cheap as possible we searched for a way to make the labels also as cheap as possible.

Looking on the internet for ready printed product labels, on a roll that are delivered ready for sticking, I found theme quite expensive. Sometimes the price for one label is more than 1 euro and that is way too much.

We want to use the label on our bags created from plastic waste. So we want to melt it in with the hot iron directly.

After doing some research on the internet I found a material in A4 sheets that we can print ourself, cut the labels out and melt it on the product. Its called SISER EasyColor A4 printbare flex and costs 1,90 euro per sheet.

We designed a A4 template with 42 labels on it for a test print. Mmm… wat is the front and what is the back of this material? There is a darker site that looks like the glued/sticky side and a white site for printing? Let’s try it in our inkjet printer. The sheet has not a real A4 format so it is nasty to get the alignment properly done each sheet. But with some patience we manage to print on it. The design is a bit blown-up ( bolder fonts) but okay it works. Take care of water or sweat because it will destroy your (ink) print work. You have to let it dry, so don’t use it directly and wait a while until the ink is dried completely.

Will it stick if we melt it on the plastic waste bags?

No it does not. What is wrong?

We set the hot iron temperature on Wool, around 170 degrees Celsius, that must be hot enough, but no go. We used of course a silicon/backing paper between the hot iron and the label. Did I print on the wrong site? Turned it upside down and still not melting in the bags….

Finally I found that the A4 sheets consist of 2 parts. The darker part must be pulled off then you keep the white printed area and that is the part you can melt on the bags. And that works great!

We now have a solution for a label that costs around 0,05 euro. Great! So we make a few and put it in the box for our investigative mission in November.