What next for waste and recycling of packs?

packagingnews.co.uk: "A move away from simple weight reduction towards carbon footprinting is on the cards – a method supported by 70% of respondents. Charlotte Henderson, Wrap’s retail supply chain programme manager, agrees that carbon is a good approach to take, but one that raises further questions, requiring research. 

Is carbon footprinting about establishing a full life-cycle analysis for each product or generating standard figures for each material? she asks. And then how do we use the data so that comparisons can be made?

These doubts are highlighted in the survey, which reveals only 3% feel an accurate and usable carbon footprint model is currently achievable. Carbon footprint is not the be all [and end all]. Sensible packaging covers many aspects, argues one respondent. Another believes like must be compared with like. There’s too much greenwash."

it is clear that when it comes to disseminating information, packaging has a lot of work to do. The sector should endeavour to find higher-profile places to communicate what packaging achieves. The talking heads are usually from action groups who have no idea of the job packaging performs, is a comment from just one of the two-thirds of respondents who feel packaging is underselling itself. 

The lack of a high-profile figure to educate the consumer and mass media is a particular concern. A major advertising campaign seems unlikely, however, not least because the different material sectors are often more interested in promoting their own products than the idea of packaging as a whole, as one respondent argues, and each retailer is trying to steal a greenwash march on its rivals.

Whatever form Courtauld 2.0 might take, the overriding view seems to be of an industry desperately in need of a public relations strategy. As one survey response summarises: What Courtauld has done is focus us to think ‘outside the box’. However, until the end user has a better idea of what packaging does, they will always hark back to days of old when everything was packed in yesterday’s newspaper.