Lower food prices and less waste thanks to low-cost, smart sensors using Radio Frequency ID RFID technology could result from pioneering work at the University of Manchester, UK.
Scientists and engineers at The Syngenta Sensors University Innovation Centre SSUIC are developing technology that will allow more scientific ‘best before’ dates to be set by food producers and retailers.
from Simeon Goldstein, packagingnews.co.uk, 11 August 2009
THINGS ARE HOTTING-UP ON THE LEGAL FRONT! Under the Producer Responsibility Requirements (Packaging Waste) Regulations, firms that handle more than 50 tonnes of packaging a year and generate a turnover bigger than £2m are required to register with the EA or compliance scheme.
Many companies have ignored this legislation and clearly ‘flouted the law’. Following recent prosecutions (see our other reports in our ‘legal section‘ ), a West Sussex jewellery importer is now the latest firm to be prosecuted under these regulations after it was fined more than £6,200 last week. Burgess Hill-based Icon Live imports and sells jewellery and pleaded guilty to not recovering and recycling packaging waste in 2006 and 2007.
Asda will challenge big-name brands to follow its lead by slashing packaging by up to a third this autumn.
Following a drive to cut own-label packaging by 25%, which resulted in a saving of £10m, chief merchandising officer Darren Blackhurst said he would be asking brand owners to follow suit at Asda’s supplier conference later this year.
Combining recycling streams of polyethylene terephthalate PET and polylactic acid PLA containers could place the future of both in jeopardy, a leading trade body has cautioned.
The National Association for PET Container Resources NAPCOR has rejected the premise of recycling both materials in tandem over concerns of separation costs, increased contamination and yield loss. The group also warned about the impact any such move would have on recycled PET quality and processing.
Well it looks as though Walmart is keeping up the pressure on the industry to improve its environmental performance, which is not a bad thing if it helps saves the planet and makes everyone in the supply chain more aware of their responsibilities. Walmart announced they will be asking their suppliers 15 simple questions (see below) about how they produced the product and packaging. The questions fall into 4 categories:
Energy and Climate: Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Material Efficiency: Reducing Waste and Enhancing Quality
Natural Resources: Producing High Quality, Responsibly Sourced Raw Materials
People and Community: Ensuring Responsible and Ethical Production
This is an effort to help to create a sustainability index number to provide customers with product information in a simple, convenient, easy to understand rating, so they can make choices and consume in a more sustainable way.
So what does this mean to the packaging industry?
Those companies who design and develop packaging will need to know and understand these 15 questions and how they contribute to their customers’ answers as suppliers to Walmart.
Have a read and let us know what you think.
Thanks go out to Branding & Marketing Guru @chrisbrown330 for bringing our attention to this article
A coalition of plastic industry trade associations will today commit to doubling plastic packaging recycling rates by 2020, as part of a campaign designed to limit the amount of plastic waste being sent to landfill.
The Plastics 2020 Challenge has been organised by the British Plastics Federation, PlasticsEurope and the Packaging & Films Association, which together represent around 5,000 firms from across the plastic industry.
Firstly, I must say that it’s great news that we’ve finally got a strategy being developed for packaging in a low carbon economy – it’s a huge step forward.
The report suggests a move away “from weight-based to carbon-based (packaging waste) targets†taking in to account “whole life cycle impacts.†which is a bold move – but how will this be implemented and managed in a consistent manner?
There is mention of “Treating packaging waste as a valuable resourceâ€. Yes, we should encourage:
“• more recycling by householders; with schemes that collect all the main packaging materials†(but let’s get UK wide consistency and make it easier for consumers to differentiate & sort!). As Dick Searle points out (see Packaging News below), “recyclability is not the problem – 85% of packaging is recyclable, while just 35% of packaging is actually recycled.”
“• local authorities and businesses treating waste packaging as a resource, leading to more recycling by businesses†(Yes, most businesses will respond to cash incentives for recycling schemes but we should not lose sight of other ways of processing waste and think of latent energy recovery/capture. Efforts should be given to an all encompassing sustainability policy/programme – i don’t see any mention of that anywhere! – or have I missed something?)
As a footnote, I’d like to say that anything that enables consumers to appreciate the benefits of packaging and stop seeing it only as ‘waste’, is a good thing. I also think that we are in dire need of a government strategy on ‘Food Waste’ = otherwise we are missing a ‘big trick’ here. Around 30% of all food purchased is thrown away. If it wasn’t packaged (to extend its shelf life) that figure would probably be over 50%.
So we will continue to work on innovation for our sustainability projects, reducing and minimising wherever we can, as consumers demand, but we must not lose sight of the need for choice and convenience.
What do you think? Have your say in the comments below….
The following article provides an overview of Hilary Benn’s Packaging Strategy. We will follow-up with our own comments and views on this strategy in a separate blog-post – look out for it! Chris
Jill Park, packagingnews.co.uk, 09 June 2009
The banning of aluminium and glass from landfill is under review by the government as part of its long-awaited Packaging Strategy, revealed today.
Environment minister Hilary Benn announced the government’s new packaging strategy, ‘Making the most of packaging’, this morning at the Futuresource conference at Excel in London.
The strategy outlines the government’s plan to improve the design and manufacture of packaging over the next decade and covers recycling strategy, packaging reduction and reusability.
In a world where food waste is a much bigger problem than packaging waste (and indeed a problem that packaging helps alleviate), although the following article is not strictly packaging, we thought that it would be of interest to you all (we certainly found it so).
June 22, 2009 Source: www.Earthfirst.com (& www.bbc.co.uk)
In some African countries, like Rwanda, bananas are plentiful – and so are their discarded peels. But one thing that’s not plentiful is affordable fuel for cooking, lighting and heating. Researchers at Nottingham University have found a way to use the resources that are available by turning rotten banana peels into briquettes that would not only provide fuel but also help reduce deforestation by limiting reliance on firewood.
Although this academic article is a few years old now, it provides a useful overview for those of you wishing to gain a broader understanding of some of the impacts that should be considered in the overall debate on packaging, waste, recycling, light-weighting etc
When looking at packaging per unit, rather than packaging per tonne – where glass is best, plastics (PVC excluded) comes off quite well and light-weighting is viewed in a more favourable ‘light’ than recycling. Overall the article rcognises that “packaging plays a valuable, often resource-conserving role in the modern distribution of food, beverages and other goods”.