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Businesses Are Being Encouraged To Exceed Packaging Legislation with New Checklist

 

The FDF (The Food and Drink Federation) and the INCPEN (The Industry Council for research on Packaging and the Environment) have joined together to launch a new checklist to ensure businesses optimise their packaging systems.

This checklist will cover a practical guidance for business to enhance that resourcefulness throughout the packaging chain, as well end of life and transportation. On March 10th, the packaging for people, plant and profit sustainability checklist was unveiled by the groups which account for the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, including retailers and suppliers who are looking to promote efficiency through their packaging options.

The checklist gives companies a variety of choices so that they can optimise packaging and contribute to an improvement in resources. This will also make supply chains resource-efficient as it will cater to safety and hygiene demands and also address any environmental issues. The use of technically engineered thin Polyolefin shrink films can make an invaluable contribution toward source reduction, so this is worth remembering.

In a statement which was featured in a checklist, Thérèse Coffey an environment minister said: “This framework is a strong development towards a more sustainable future, helping to increase resource efficiency and waste prevention while contributing to an overall reduction in carbon use.

“A whole chain effort is needed to truly succeed, and we must all make the best use of our resources – that is why I welcome these initiatives and the work of the FDF and INCPEN to help us make supply chains more resource-efficient and better protect our environment.”

The organisations involved account for 46% of UK manufacturing employment, with a turnover of around £280m. This will create a large opportunity to transform packaging methods amongst many of these companies.

To incentivise companies to comply with the checklist, it will aim to motivate innovation in package design. This will help companies gain economic advantages as they will respond better to consumer demands. Both the FDF and INCPEN will follow the reach of the checklist through downloads and will monitor its use.

It will act as the first deliverable checklist under the FDF’s Ambition 2025, which will call on its members to increase their efforts to reduce environmental impact and contribute the delivery of the sustainable food system.

Helen Munday, FDF’s director of food safety, science and sustainability said: “This guidance will help businesses choose and optimise their use of packaging in ways that will contribute to a net improvement in the use of resources across the value chain. This improvement can be achieved while continuing to ensure that food safety and quality requirements are not compromised. We encourage all food and drink operators to use it.”

The UK Government discussed this checklist during the rent budget announcement. The Government will legislate to set new packaging recycling targets for 2018 to 2020, to make sure it is in line with the EU’s packaging directive. We will then churn the introduction of 75% recycling targets for paper, 64% for aluminium, 85% for steel and 48% for wood packaging.