The European Green Deal aims to make Europe the first climate neutral continent in the world by 2050. It is a huge opportunity and challenge, which will impact on all industries and all sectors of the food supply chain, including the paper packaging industry.
This year, European policymakers hope to revise the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) to prevent the spread of unnecessary packaging, increase the recyclability of those products allowed on the market and ultimately to profoundly change consumer behaviour.
The Commission has recently emphasised their wish to transform the Directive into a Regulation in order to strictly harmonise rules across the Single Market, while also emphasising that recyclability and renewability should be at the heart of the new approach.
Paper-based packaging has evolved hugely in recent years, cutting carbon emissions and pollutants across the product life cycle, reducing material resource use with ever lighter products made from a renewable material, and vastly increasing recycling rates.
These trends, and how they interact with specific elements of the planned PPWD revision, will be addressed in an expert panel organised by EPPA in partnership with Euractiv, on June 9.
In the feature presentation, respected engineering consultancy Ramboll will present their latest Life Cycle Assessment study, which confronts the common perception and evidence that reusable tableware used in quick service restaurants do not deliver the best overall environmental outcome, opposite to paper.
A panel discussion will then explore what the PPWD has in store, how it could be improved, and what it could mean for European citizens, businesses and the environment.
Please join us for an interesting debate and register for the event here.
Press Release European Paper Packaging Alliance
Statement from EPPA on the report published by the Rethink Plastic Alliance, Zero Waste Europe, the European Environmental Bureau, Fern, and the Environmental Paper Network on 12 September 2023
