Sustainability

Banners Shouldn’t End Up in a Landfill

Every year millions of banners are printed, used briefly, and discarded — filling landfills with millions of cubic feet of waste. Banner Ups is part of the solution.

The Challenge

Why Hasn’t Banner Recycling Taken Hold?

Unlike paper, cardboard, and aluminum, banner media has been notoriously difficult to recycle at scale. Several structural barriers have kept the industry from making meaningful progress:

Mixed Materials

PVC banners combine vinyl film and polyester fibres — recycling systems can’t process them together.

Grommet Removal

Metal grommets must be removed before recycling — a costly, labor-intensive step that kills the economics.

Incompatible PVC

Standard reinforced PVC is incompatible with most municipal and industrial recycling streams.

No Bulk Buyers

Even when sorted correctly, finding buyers for bulk banner waste has been nearly impossible.

The Solution

A Grommet-Free, Recyclable Future

The industry is shifting. Polyolefin-based media — polypropylene and polyethylene — is gaining adoption because of its strength, light weight, cost advantages, and crucially, recyclability. Industry leaders like HP are driving the production of fully recyclable media at scale.

When paired with a fully integrated recycling process that connects printers to bulk waste buyers, a genuinely sustainable banner production workflow becomes possible for the first time.

Banner Ups’ Role

Banner Ups replaces metal grommets entirely with a pressure-sensitive adhesive finishing system — eliminating the single biggest barrier to banner recycling. No grommets means no removal step, and no contamination of the recycling stream.

Banner Ups tabs are made from 100% recyclable materials — polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyester — the same materials as the recyclable banner media they’re designed to finish.

Performance + Sustainability

Strong Enough to Replace Grommets. Clean Enough to Recycle.

90+ mph

Wind tunnel tested — Banner Ups banners withstand winds grommets can’t match.

100%

Recyclable tab materials — polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyester.

Zero

Metal grommets — no contamination, no removal step, no recycling barrier.

For Your Business

How to Build a Sustainable Banner Workflow

Use Recyclable Media & Finishing

Switch to polyolefin-based banner media and finish banners with Banner Ups adhesive tabs instead of grommets.

Automate High-Volume Finishing

Use BravoBanner-ready printers to finish recyclable banners at high volume with low per-unit cost.

Connect to Waste Buyers

Partner with integrated recycling programs that include verified buyers for bulk banner waste streams.

Meet Corporate Sustainability Goals

Close the loop on print waste and demonstrate measurable environmental impact to clients and stakeholders.

Ready to Make the Switch?