PACKAGING – A BRIEF HISTORY OF RECENT EVENTS PRE 1990
In the latter half of the 20th century consumer attention was increasingly focused on the “mountains” of packaging waste either being buried in landfills or burned. The realization that Europe was running out of landfill capacity combined with the potential risks/issues from uncontrolled burning of waste which included packaging, resulted in the demonizing of packaging as the “Sinner of the 20th century”. Positively, it also resulted in the German Packaging Ordinance (implemented as the DSD) in 1990 and the EU’s Packaging & Packaging Waste Directive in 1994.
20 YEARS LATER …AND A LOT OF PROGRESS!
From this “pit of public opinion”, all parts of the packaging and related industries have worked to progressively and collaboratively decouple packaging waste from economic growth; by lowering pack weights and by developing increasingly sophisticated packaging collection, sorting and recycling systems for all packaging materials.
Download the “Sinner to Saint” journey here.