Materials / Recycling

At Shepherd Thermoforming and Packaging, we feature a wide variety of material types with countless textures, graining, haircell, as well as an unlimited color pallet to bring your next packaging creation to life. Finishes can range from solid, to different levels of translucency, and of course, full transparency (clear). Other finishes include metallic or pearlized coatings. We also partner with various printers to combine thermoformed products with detailed graphic images and text information.

Shepherd promotes the use of materials which come from recycled plastics wherever possible. We offer our clients recycled PET packaging which is made from up to 100% post-consumer-recycled PET (water bottles). To state this clearly, this means that our incoming RPET raw materials can be derived solely from blue box collection programs, at no added cost to our clients. In 2011 Shepherd processed close to 2,000,000 lbs. of RPET - equivalent to diverting roughly 36,000,000 water bottles from landfill. After forming our products, we also ensure that 100 % of the left-over web materials are reground, recycled and end up in a variety of other plastic products:

PET and RPET is recycled again into new RPET sheet for use back here at Shepherd.
All other web materials such as HIPS, PP, HMWPE, PVC and ABS are reground and converted for use in other consumer products such as composite wood decking, Vinyl Siding and Carpeting.

We also offer PLA ( Polylactic acid) which is a biodegradable/compostable polyester manufactured from plant based resources such as corn starch. Other exciting possibilities for improved recycling and composting are under development which will further enhance the sustainability of our products.