Product Stewardship: Tackling the Problem of Packaging Waste

Packaging is a problem we are all familiar with, and deal with on a daily basis.

The first EPR program established was created to manage packaging

•Packaging is largest component of household waste

•The US generated almost 80 million tons of packaging waste in 2006 up from 24 tons in 1960

First: Understanding the problem

• Packaging consumes energy in production and

transport and is often made with virgin materials

It is an environmental problem

Most packaging is only used briefly

Only some of this material is recycled or reused

• The rest is landfilled or

ends up as litter

• There is significant

potential for resource

recovery

Some packaging is difficult to recycle

Examples:

• Bottle caps

• Composite Materials

• Plastic films in mixed stream

recycling

Some packaging can be a public safety concern

example: BPA exposure for young children

The drivers of packaging waste

Amount of

material

# of packaged goods

controlled by:•Manufacturers

controlled by:• Economy• Consumption• Consumer preference

Totalpackaging wastex =

Lawmakers, environmentalists & major companies decided we needed

a new approach

So what is being done to address this problem?

1. manufacturers & retailers have established voluntary initiatives

2. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws have been passed in Europe and Canada

Voluntary Initiatives

Packaging ScorecardEvaluates suppliers’

packaging in terms of the “7 R’s” of Packaging:

•Reduce

• Recycle

• Revenue

• Read

• Remove

• Reuse

• Renew

• Read

Goal: reduce all packaging of products sold in stores

by 5% by 2013

•would take 213,000 trucks off the road annually • saving 66.7 million gallons of diesel fuel

• Using less packaging

• Reusing packaging

Ways to reduce the environmental impact

Design changes

Resource recovery

• Reduced need for virgin materials• Reduced GHG

emissions

SourceReduction

• Environmentally preferable materialso Biodegradableo Recyclableo Free of harmful

substances

Doing more with less

From the company’s perspective:

“sales have exceeded expectations and now account for over 10% of all our milk sales - which demonstrates that customers really like the lower packaged version.”

One of the largest grocers in the UK recently introduced a milk jug that uses 75% less packaging (and reduces costs)

Saving 900 tones of virgin packaging

From a life cycle perspective: Less is not always better

Focusing simply on reducing the amount of packaging may

actually cause more environmental impact due to wasted or

lost goods

Myth of the loose fruit

• one UK study has shown that that loosely packed fruit can actually be more wasteful that packaged fruit due to loss of goods along the supply chain

We also need to focus on using better materials

• free of harmful chemicals

• reusable

• made from recycled and post-consumer materials

• biodegradable

• or recyclable

The sustainable packaging market is expected to double in size from $88 billion (2009) to $170 billion in 2014 (Growing faster than the general packaging market)

Another approach: Extended Producer Responsibility in Europe

• Passed in 1994

• Has increased collection rates well beyond those in the US

• Requires industry to finance the collection, transportation, & recycling of packaging they place on the market

European Packaging Directive:

EU Packaging Directive applies to:& TransitPackaging

Primary Packaging

Secondary Packaging

contains final goodsused to deliver goods from the manufacturer to the retailer

used to ship raw materials & goods

EPR in CanadaOntario: Blue Box Program

• Curbside collection of all packaging and printed materials

• Moving from a cost-sharing system (50/50 local authorities & industry) to

100% producer responsibility

traditional regulation

• Government dictated

• Government run

• taxes environmental externalities

• costs borne by taxpayers

Product Stewardship: a market-based solution

producer responsibility • Allows flexibility to determine the most efficient solutions

• Industry run

• Internalizes externalities

• management costs shifted to the marketplace

•.

What’s Next? Extended Producer Responsibility

for packaging in the US?