Report on EMPS Dinner lecture - The issues facing packaging & impact on the environment -3rd March 2010

[Chris Penfold]

On 3rd March, The East Midlands Packaging Society were proud to host an evening dinner lecture on 'The issues facing packaging & impact on the environment'. We were privileged to listen to the views of leading industry expert Jane Bickerstaffe, Chief Executive of INCPEN (Industry Council for Packaging & the Environment). It was interesting to hear about INCPEN’s evidence-based approach to environmental and social impacts, which encourages companies to continuously improve packaging/product systems and to help consumers live more sustainably. They also do a lot of work to ensure that public policy on packaging makes a positive contribution to sustainability, whilst explaining the social contribution of packaging to a wider audience.

Jane talked about the issues from a number of stakeholder perspectives starting with the public,where there are a number of (sometime misinformed) consumer perceptions around packaging, through policy makers and local government, and on to packaging suppliers and retailers.

Another area covered was the ‘Courtauld Commitment’, carbon as a “sub-set of life cycle assessment” and the problems & issues of using any one sustainability measure in isolation. Indeed the same products can be produced in different countries & simply due to differing energy production techniques, have a completely different environmental impact.

She also talked about the “Unintended consequences of favouring ‘easily-recyclable’ containers” (rather than, for example, multi-layer lightweight laminates) leading to more waste for final disposal, even after over 80% glass and metal has been recycled. She stressed that all materials have pros and cons and no type of packaging has a monopoly of environmental virtues.

The success of recycling collection systems was covered, whilst highlighting the underutilized opportunity of energy recovery presented by many materials (such as plastics which have a higher calorific value than coal). The overall affect of all of this is to “skew the packaging market to materials that are easier to recycle / compost but are not always the most resource-efficient”.

We all know that packaging is an ‘easy target’ because it’s so visible, but the below picture shows an interesting comparison of energy consumption (MJ/per person/per week) comparing packaging to a wide range of consumer/household activities, many of which are invisible. These are the sort of messages that need to be broadcast to consumers to help educate.

Our grateful thanks go to Jane for taking
time out from her busy schedule to come up to the East Midlands and to the D H Lawrence Centre, Eastwood, who made us extremely welcome and provided a lovely meal and wonderful array of refreshments.

For more information on INCPEN, check out: http://www.incpen.org/

For further information about the East Midlands Branch of the Packaging Society check out our Facebook & LinkedIn groups at:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=269711944070&ref=ts

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2722666&trk=anet_...;

Chris Penfold
External Relations Officer, East Midlands Packaging Society