The Setup of Packaging Development Targeted at Source Reduction and Environmental Regulatory Compliance

Abstract

Permanent growth of packaging waste has a negative environmental effect. Therefore, volume and content of packaging are being regulated by relevant legislation. In 1994, the European Union (EU) adopted the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste (94/62/EC) (subsequently -the Directive), which set the environmental requirements for packaging but did not precisely specify the methods of their implementation. The related harmonised standards EN 13427-13432 partly filled in the gap, but a number of questions have been still left without due explanations. The EU countries were supposed to develop their own legislation, which should have been complemented with the elements that have not been elaborated on the EU level. This task appeared to be complicated for many countries for various reasons, including economic. The cost of implementation of the Directive can be high for a country, especially if it is not done carefully. As a result, the state of implementation of the Directive by the EU countries remains non-uniform. Only a few countries have fully implemented it, while others have just transferred the requirements into their own legislation, but have not implemented the obligatory enforcement measures. A big variety of packaging source reduction policies exist in the EU, which have been developed by the Member States trying to fit them to the country's situation in terms of legislation, institutional infrastructure, conduct of the industry, etc. For this reason, their transfer from one country to another is problematic. Therefore, this study aims to develop a cost-efficient structure of the packaging development process to be applied by both the industry and state enforcement institutions and to fit into the context typical for Lithuania.

Eco-design Methods and Tools: An Overview and Applicability to Packaging

“…According to Yan et al (2001Yan et al ( -2002, life cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful tool in analyzing the ronmental impact of a product by calculating the inputs and outputs of each stage of a product's life cycle. LCA ed in eco-design as the tool and methodologies for environmental impact quantification (Navajas et al, 2017;i et al, 2016). However, LCA data are usually too complex and detailed to make sense to most business decision ers (Yan et al, 2001(Yan et al, -2002.…”

“…The related harmonized standards EN 13427-13432 partly filled in the gap and clarified many aspects related to the implementation of the Directive at both the company and the country-wide levels ((EN 13427:2004;EN 13428:2004;EN 13429:2004;EN 13430:2004;EN 13431:2004;EN 13432:2000;Varžinskas et al, 2016) (Table 5)). The most important Directive for Eco-design is 2009/125/ EC.…”

Packaging recycling and using of recycled raw materials in the production of packages, with an emphasis on hazardous chemical substances

“…These substances may be present in products sold before the restrictions applied. Some of them have a long heavy metals in packaging material composition applications (Pb, Cd, Hg and Cr (VI) <= 100 ppm) (Chem Safety, 2018;Varžinskas et al, 2016). A packaging supplier must ensure that necessary measures have been taken to limit the level of heavy metals and, if possible, to further reduce them in accordance with CEN/TR 13695-1:2000 methodology, as well as the level of all hazardous substances or mixtures as specified in EN 13428:2004 and CEN/TR 13695-2:2004.…”