We are OPRL members, to ensure that we can verify our recycling claims and support the wider industry in enabling better processes and provision for recycling.
4.
End of life packaging disposal - recycling and composting
3. Reducing Food Waste
We start with the end in mind. We follow circular design principles in our product development, balancing sustainability with functionality. Product design is one of the key areas where we can make the biggest contribution to Reduce & Recycle. To do this, we: • Choose our materials to ensure maximum efficiency in the recycling process • Reduce the use of hard to recycle elements where possible • Work with the waste industry and other industry bodies to assess and develop our products’ recyclability in practical terms Our aim is to remove unnecessary plastic and reduce materials where possible . Using recycled and recovered materials also helps to conserve natural resources. Food contamination is a significant issue for food packaging recycling. Especially in food-to-go, delivery and ready-meal packaging sectors, which are often disposed of contaminated with food. Changing consumer behaviour to avoid this, will be a challenging and long-term process. In the meantime, we are working on a long term project, to enable our customers to work with current consumer behaviour, to provide options for this type of challenge, which fit into current and future waste streams. We have pioneered the use of compostable paperboard materials, and we believe that these have a significant role to play, in getting more circularity into the sectors, where food contamination is significant. The challenges for compostable materials have always been about getting the waste to an appropriate facility to be dealt with and aligning the right material with the right process. We have some exciting collaborations in this area which we believe can provide a solution for many of our customers. If you would like to know more, please contact us.
The UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 is to halve food waste by 2050. Food packaging is needed to protect food, and in many instances it is there to extend the shelf life of the product. However packaging is only part of the story, and it is easy to forget the carbon impact of the food itself. Major brands and the UK government are backing systems to help consumers assess the environmental impact of all products.
Food preservation is very important. Not only does it reduce the impact of food waste but it also reduces transport emissions as deliveries need to be made less frequently.
Colpac’s innovative work with Modified Atmosphere Packaging delivers the benefits
of this technology, whilst minimising the amount
of fossil fuel based plastic needed in the pack.
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Tel: +44 (0)1525 712 261 • sales@colpacpackaging.com • www.colpacpackaging.com
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