Last year’s COP26 climate conference finished with commitments intended to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The agreements from the conference didn’t refer to waste packaging recycling but COP26 did recognise the importance of reducing methane emissions, of which landfill is a major global contributor. This demonstrates the importance of recycling as much as possible to avoid sending rubbish to landfill. To this end, the Plastic Packaging Tax was rolled out on April 1st to encourage the use of recyclable materials and limit the volume of plastic going to landfill. The rate of tax will be £200 per tonne on plastic packaging that contains less than 30% recycled plastic, and which is manufactured or imported into the UK.
This article was first published in the May 1st 2022 issue of Warehouse & Logistics News, subscribe to the magazine by clicking here.
All of us have a responsibility to reduce, re-use and recycle. With sustainability high on the agenda, Item Products, the leading designer and producer of components for the packaging industry, will be using this year’s Packaging Innovations event at Birmingham’s NEC on 25 and 26 May to showcase the benefits of their Box Latch products in providing a long-term solution to corrugate waste management. Item Products is exhibiting on stand F10.
Replacing tape with a recycled plastic closure and reopening device, Box Latch is available in sizes to suit single and double wall corrugated board, with a triple-wall version coming online soon. By providing manufacturing and retail environments with a re-usable alternative to tape and staples, Box Latch can extend the life of corrugated boxes, thereby saving costs.
New packaging technology can help save the planet. Sparck Technologies, the new name for Packaging by Quadient, has hit a major milestone with 100 million boxes produced on its revolutionary fit-to-size packaging machines worldwide. As Sparck’s advanced CVP Everest and CVP Impack packaging systems make each cardboard box to the exact size required for every particular order, the company calculates that some 34,250,000 sq m of cardboard has been saved through the use of its technology, equating to the preservation of 46,000 trees. In addition to the material savings and ecological benefits, the effect of the total volume reduction resulting from fit-to-size packaging across 100 million packages is estimated to have removed 31,700 lorry loads from the roads, contributing to reductions in the carbon footprint of Sparck Technologies’ customers worldwide.
Warehouse & Logistics News is a media partner of the Packaging Innovations show for the third year. Visitors to the show will learn about upcoming packaging trends, the latest solutions and material innovations and will be inspired by those leading the way in packaging design and branding. Come and see us on stand B44.
George Simpson
Features Editor
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