IST America drives growth at Buckeye Business Products, UPM explores EPR and more

As Buckeye scaled its operations, the company faced a critical challenge in ensuring consistent silicone curing for its release liners. This is an often-overlooked but essential part of label performance.

Variability in curing created risks for end-use performance, particularly in the demanding auto-apply label market. Here, even minor inconsistencies in release values can cause label jams and costly downtime for customers.

To address these challenges, Buckeye turned to IST America, leveraging its expertise in UV curing technology. Over a two-year period, Buckeye invested in replacing its entire curing infrastructure with the IST BLK water-cooled UV cassettes with nitrogen inertization, a multimillion-dollar project that demonstrated the company’s commitment to quality and long-term reliability.

Meanwhile, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws for packaging have passed in seven US states, covering 63 million people – nearly 20% of the country’s population. In Canada, similar rules already reach 98% of residents.

For label converters, the shift expands the definition of label performance to include environmental impact and packaging recyclability. And this performance can impact brands’ bottom line now while becoming a market access issue in the near future.

UPM is actively tracking packaging EPR developments and shares what it learns with customers, so they can explain the requirements to their own customers in turn. 

Here are the top viewed stories from the week ending on JUly 24, 2026:

1. Buckeye Business Products boosts label manufacturing with UV innovation
2. Packaging EPR is here: What that means for label converters
3. Flint Group Packaging Solutions prepares for LOUPE Americas
4. SST details benefits of new LED curing solutions
5. NextGen Label Group installs second RFID converting line