ENVIRONMENTAL CODE OF PRACTICE
Packaging Waste
Overview
Packaging plays an important role in ensuring products are
delivered to customers in good condition. It is designed to make
distribution and storage easier, to meet retail requirements and to
assist in marketing. It may also be required to conform with
environmental and health and safety legislation. However, packaging
can form a large proportion of a company’s waste production and a
reduction in this waste stream could bring significant cost
savings. Marine companies can take action voluntarily or may
actually be required to minimise the quantity of packaging which
they use.
The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Wastes)
Regulations 1997 apply to any business with an annual turnover of
over £2 million, which manufactures, fills or sells packaging or
packaging materials in excess of 50 tonnes a year. This also
includes packaging around products, which your company may sell to
the end consumer. If your company falls under the Regulations, you
are required to register with your relevant environmental agency
and you are required to recover and recycle a specified amount of
packaging waste. Alternatively you can register with a packaging
recovery scheme. For a fee these will carry out the registration
process on your behalf and accept legal responsibility for the
recycling target.
Minimising packaging
If you fall below these statutory requirements it is still worth
considering the following points to identify ways to minimise the
quantities of the packaging that your company handles:
- Do the products that you produce need to be packaged at
all?
- If packaging is necessary can you reduce the amount of
packaging that you use?
- Can you recover your product packaging from your distributors/
wholesalers for re-use? If not, could you change the way that your
products are packaged so that this becomes feasible?
- Wholesalers/retailers/distributors – can the packaging that you
receive be returned to the supplier for reuse? For example, some of
the major engine manufacturers and supermarkets now distribute
their products on re-usable plastic pallets.
- Can you re-use the packaging, which comes with the
materials/products which you purchase? If not, could an adjacent
local business/school/charity re-use it? Conversely, could your
company use, for example, second hand cardboard boxes? By doing so
you could save your company money.
- Ask your supplier whether they can supply the product in an
alternative packaging, which could be reused or recycled. For
example, some resin manufacturers now supply their products in
plastic bags supported by a metal frame. The metal frame is
re-usable and the customer using the resin no longer has to pay the
high costs of disposing of used chemical drums.
- Is the packaging which you use recyclable and if so is there a
clear indication of this to the customer? For example, plastic
which is recyclable has the symbol showing three arrows forming a
triangle. Speak to your suppliers if you are unsure as to the
‘recyclability’ of your packaging.