Eighteen major consumer product goods companies sign on to use RPA-100% logo in first half of 2009.
PRESS RELEASE -- Converting Magazine
The 100% Recycled Paperboard Alliance announced that a record number of new licensees have signed up in the first 6 months of 2009.
During the period January 1st through June 30th, 18 of America’s best known brand owners ave chosen to sign a license agreement with the RPA-100% granting them the right to display the RPA-100% symbol on their packaging. In making the announcement Paul Schutes, Executive Director of the RPA-100% commented that, “this puts our organization on a pace to add 40 new licensees by the close of 2009, exceeding any previous year’s total new licensees and exceeding our goal for this year.”
These new licensees include companies such as Harland Check, Nestle’ Purina Petcare and Snyder’s of Hanover. New licensees are using 100% recycled paperboard to package organic foods, pet food, snacks, office supplies and even to manufacture coffee cup insulating sleeves. Mike Kiepura, Chairman of the Board of the RPA-100% noted that, “this high number of new licensees proves that today’s brand owners are increasingly interested in communicating to their customers that the products they are purchasing are packaged in 100% recycled paperboard. We are encouraged by this level of activity and are confident that 100% recycled paperboard and the use of the RPA-100% symbol will continue to play a key role in the drive for more sustainable packaging and the education of consumers with regard to the value of recycled paperboard packaging.”
The 100% recycled paperboard symbol is owned by RPA-100% and is reserved exclusively for licensed use on products and packaging made with 100% recycled paperboard. Use of the symbol is free for licensees of RPA-100%. Currently more than 150 companies have signed licensing agreements to display the symbol and become RPA-100% partners. More information on licensing the symbol is available on the RPA-100%. Website at www.rpa100.com.
Consumer packaged goods companies have used 100% recycled paperboard for more than 100 years. Recycled paperboard plays a pivotal role in making fiber based packaging one of the most environmentally beneficial and sustainable packaging substrates. Today, 100% recycled paperboard is used to package a wide range of goods including food (dry, frozen, ready-to-eat, microwave and fast food), beverages, pharmaceuticals, electronics/software and other consumer products. Nationally known names such as FedEx Corporation, Kraft, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Procter & Gamble and Reynold's Consumer Products, a division of Alcoa Consumer Products, are just a few of the companies using 100% recycled paperboard for their products.
The 100% Recycled Paperboard Alliance (RPA-100%) is a non-profit, independent trade group representing the leading manufacturers in the recycled paperboard industry since 1995. Based in Washington, D.C., RPA-100% serves as an information resource on the benefits of recycled paperboard and provides assurance of the recycled content of consumer packaged goods through its 100% recycled paperboard logo licensing program.
-- CardPak Inc.
Showing posts with label Converting Magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Converting Magazine. Show all posts
Friday, July 10, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Debunk five eco-packaging myths
The following thoughts can help you correct some of the commonly quoted inaccuracies for your packaging-material customers and their consumers.
By The Benson Group -- Converting Magazine
In these days of environmental focus, nothing seems to arouse the passions like food and medical packaging. Unfortunately, much of the "bad news" that circulates on the topic is based on myth and hearsay. Maybe some of the following thoughts will help to correct some of the commonly quoted inaccuracies for your packaging-material customers and their consumers.
Myth 1: Food Packaging is filling our landfill sites
Publicly available information suggests that the total volume of waste produced from all sources in the UK per year is about 300 million tons. Only some 10% of this is accounted for by household waste - about 27 million tons. Building sites, as one good point of comparison, produce about four times as much rubbish as households. Packaging of all types represents some 4.5 million tons of household waste, and the amount actually due to food packaging is likely to be no more than 1 million tons. The weight of food packaging per person is less then 44 lbs per year.
Compare that 44 lbs of packaging with the 220 lbs per person per year of food waste that is put straight into the wastebin, and you begin to see that packaging is actually the least of our worries. The environmental impact of the food waste is compounded by the fact that the vast majority of this is also dumped into landfills. Food going to landfills will gradually rot and produce methane - a gas of significantly greater concern regarding global warming than CO2.
Myth 2: Everything is over-packaged
While there may be some mileage in this statement in certain sectors, food is unlikely to be one of them. The protection offered to food products by packaging provides a significant benefit, as illustrated by statistics from the World Health Organisation, which suggest that food waste in the Third World can be as high as 50%, while in developed economies as low as 3%. Much of this difference is due to good quality packaging. Under-packaging is 10 times worse for the environment that the same amount of over-packaging, as 10 times more energy and material resources go into the production of goods and food than into their packaging.
Additional fuel in favor of sensible packaging is provided by the Cucumber Growers' Associated, which showed that unwrapped cucumbers are unsaleable after three days. Plastic wrapping keeps them fresh for 14 days and untouched by dirty hands.
Cleaner and fresher produce and foodstuffs less likely to be damaged during transportation equals product less likely to be thrown straight into the wastebin. Smarter shopping and cooking, and more focus on producing less food waste is far more likely to provide the answer to environmental issues than simply reducing packaging.
Myth 3: Cardboard packaging destroys trees
An unfortunate perception of the print and packaging world is that it "eats trees." In fact, of the world consumption of wood only 12% is actually used for the manufacture of paper and board, and of this, just one tenth is used for cartons. Over half the cartons used in Europe are manufactured using recovered fiber from waste paper.
In Europe, over 90% of the wood needed by the paper and board industry comes from European forests, and responsible packaging producers ensure that their purchases are made from FSC- and PEFC-certified suppliers, which means that any new wood used has come from responsibly managed forests. Overall there are more trees planted than felled in Europe, and as forests absorb CO2 they combat greenhouse gases, and therefore have a positive effect with regard to climate change.
Myth 4: Burying plastic is harmful to the environment
OK, time for a bit of a controversial thought now. Anything that is taken to landfill and rots will give off methane - fact! Methane, as already mentioned, is a significantly harmful gas in environmental terms, and is the probably the weakness of the argument for so called "degradable packaging." While no one likes the idea of burying plastic, it will not rot, and therefore represents less of a climate-change issue than burying food waste or even paperboard and paper (which will also rot, but should, of course, be recycled instead). This text is not advocating burying plastics - just pointing out that actually in some ways it's not as bad for the environment as burying other things.
Myth 5: Not enough packaging is being recycled
This might appear to be another controversial comment to describe as a myth, but the statement does require further analysis to extract the real truth. Some packaging materials are more difficult to recycle than others, and some are particularly expensive or energy-inefficient to recycle. Generally speaking, cartonboard is easy to recycle, and an ever increasing percentage of the population is doing so on a daily basis. Boxes and cartons are easy to disassemble and place into the recycling bin for collection, as is probably typical across much of the country. Paperboard that is not recycled will at least compost easily. More cartonboard/paper is recycled than any other packaging material. Once recent claim suggested that recycled waste paper represented around 63% of the fiber used to produce paper and board in the UK.
Summary:
Food packaging represents a small fraction of UK waste
Food waste is significantly higher in terms of volume
Food waste is also significantly more damaging to the environment
Good packaging helps to prevent more waste
Paperboard packaging is produced from sustainable resources
Paperboard packaging is easy to recycle, and is being recycled
-- CardPak Inc.
By The Benson Group -- Converting Magazine
In these days of environmental focus, nothing seems to arouse the passions like food and medical packaging. Unfortunately, much of the "bad news" that circulates on the topic is based on myth and hearsay. Maybe some of the following thoughts will help to correct some of the commonly quoted inaccuracies for your packaging-material customers and their consumers.
Myth 1: Food Packaging is filling our landfill sites
Publicly available information suggests that the total volume of waste produced from all sources in the UK per year is about 300 million tons. Only some 10% of this is accounted for by household waste - about 27 million tons. Building sites, as one good point of comparison, produce about four times as much rubbish as households. Packaging of all types represents some 4.5 million tons of household waste, and the amount actually due to food packaging is likely to be no more than 1 million tons. The weight of food packaging per person is less then 44 lbs per year.
Compare that 44 lbs of packaging with the 220 lbs per person per year of food waste that is put straight into the wastebin, and you begin to see that packaging is actually the least of our worries. The environmental impact of the food waste is compounded by the fact that the vast majority of this is also dumped into landfills. Food going to landfills will gradually rot and produce methane - a gas of significantly greater concern regarding global warming than CO2.
Myth 2: Everything is over-packaged
While there may be some mileage in this statement in certain sectors, food is unlikely to be one of them. The protection offered to food products by packaging provides a significant benefit, as illustrated by statistics from the World Health Organisation, which suggest that food waste in the Third World can be as high as 50%, while in developed economies as low as 3%. Much of this difference is due to good quality packaging. Under-packaging is 10 times worse for the environment that the same amount of over-packaging, as 10 times more energy and material resources go into the production of goods and food than into their packaging.
Additional fuel in favor of sensible packaging is provided by the Cucumber Growers' Associated, which showed that unwrapped cucumbers are unsaleable after three days. Plastic wrapping keeps them fresh for 14 days and untouched by dirty hands.
Cleaner and fresher produce and foodstuffs less likely to be damaged during transportation equals product less likely to be thrown straight into the wastebin. Smarter shopping and cooking, and more focus on producing less food waste is far more likely to provide the answer to environmental issues than simply reducing packaging.
Myth 3: Cardboard packaging destroys trees
An unfortunate perception of the print and packaging world is that it "eats trees." In fact, of the world consumption of wood only 12% is actually used for the manufacture of paper and board, and of this, just one tenth is used for cartons. Over half the cartons used in Europe are manufactured using recovered fiber from waste paper.
In Europe, over 90% of the wood needed by the paper and board industry comes from European forests, and responsible packaging producers ensure that their purchases are made from FSC- and PEFC-certified suppliers, which means that any new wood used has come from responsibly managed forests. Overall there are more trees planted than felled in Europe, and as forests absorb CO2 they combat greenhouse gases, and therefore have a positive effect with regard to climate change.
Myth 4: Burying plastic is harmful to the environment
OK, time for a bit of a controversial thought now. Anything that is taken to landfill and rots will give off methane - fact! Methane, as already mentioned, is a significantly harmful gas in environmental terms, and is the probably the weakness of the argument for so called "degradable packaging." While no one likes the idea of burying plastic, it will not rot, and therefore represents less of a climate-change issue than burying food waste or even paperboard and paper (which will also rot, but should, of course, be recycled instead). This text is not advocating burying plastics - just pointing out that actually in some ways it's not as bad for the environment as burying other things.
Myth 5: Not enough packaging is being recycled
This might appear to be another controversial comment to describe as a myth, but the statement does require further analysis to extract the real truth. Some packaging materials are more difficult to recycle than others, and some are particularly expensive or energy-inefficient to recycle. Generally speaking, cartonboard is easy to recycle, and an ever increasing percentage of the population is doing so on a daily basis. Boxes and cartons are easy to disassemble and place into the recycling bin for collection, as is probably typical across much of the country. Paperboard that is not recycled will at least compost easily. More cartonboard/paper is recycled than any other packaging material. Once recent claim suggested that recycled waste paper represented around 63% of the fiber used to produce paper and board in the UK.
Summary:
Food packaging represents a small fraction of UK waste
Food waste is significantly higher in terms of volume
Food waste is also significantly more damaging to the environment
Good packaging helps to prevent more waste
Paperboard packaging is produced from sustainable resources
Paperboard packaging is easy to recycle, and is being recycled
-- CardPak Inc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)