Package Design - November 2012 - 20

Improving Your
By Keith Loria

End-Game
Technology and science improve end-of-life scenario for spent packaging.
Return for reuse
Recycling Reinvented, a non-profit organization committed to advancing recycling rates of waste packaging, has brought together more than 30 organizations to talk about the best attributes of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for finding a packaging program that could work in the U.S. Among those companies helping in the efforts are General Mills, Colgate-Palmolive and The Procter & Gamble Company. According to Keith Fanta, P&G’s senior packaging engineer, the company’s 2020 sustainability goal revolves around package reduction. “When it comes to end-of-life, as we move forward, package reduction is our shortterm goal. Generally, the less we can put out there, the better,” he says. “We have programs in place for increasing use of recyclable material. For bottles, we have a 25% of PCR (post-consumer recycled) program in place and we look to increase that amount, and also add to product packaging where we don’t have as much PCR in today.” P&G now offers its Gillette razors in trays made from fiber-based material from molded plant fiber company Be Green Packaging. The trays reduce the packaging’s gross weight by 17% and improves pallet density by 16%. This replaced a clamshell of all PVC plastic that wasn’t earth friendly. Another part of its sustainability strategy is to partner with organizations such as The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers and The Sustainable Packaging Coalition to discover biobased solutions that are also recyclable. P&G is already using bioresin in its packaging. “Our Pantene Nature Fusion recently came out with some bioresin in its packaging and we made sure the resin would work in the recyclable industry,” Fanta says. “It contains plastic derived from sugarcane, which has sig-

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ccording to Minal Mistry, senior manager with The Sustainable Packaging Coalition, companies are focusing on three general areas when it comes to sustainability efforts in their packaging: increasing recyclable content; moving towards newer bio-based starting points such as plant-based starches and sugars as building blocks for plastics; and working collaboratively as an industry to improve or increase physical recycling between businesses. But Eric Hartman, director of packaging technologies and commercialization for Product Ventures, says, “We need to keep in mind the bigger picture.” He cites Frito-Lay’s touting of the biodegradability of its Sun Chips brand packaging (made with renewable, plantbased materials) when what it should have been doing was focusing on the renewable resource of the packaging. “We only have a limited amount of certain things we can work with and sooner or later we will run out of specific polymers and material based on fossil fuels,” Hartman says. “More and more we need to focus on a renewable sourcing of materials to get us where we need to be. When you think about composting as an end-of-life scenario as opposed to recycling, I think the focus needs to be more on recycling.”

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november 2012
Package Design - November 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Package Design - November 2012
