Packaging Expo Takes Wrapper Off New Image
The 7,200 conventioneers who gathered in Anaheim Wednesday for a packaging industry exposition didn’t look like they were under attack. The demonstrations of wrapping, stuffing and labeling machines seemed to proceed unhindered, and the racks of plastic bottles, cardboard cartons and foam insulators were not being visibly assaulted.
But any doubts that the industry has an image problem were quickly put to rest by the latest cover story in Packaging magazine: Packaging Under Attack. Rising concern about the environment--and especially about the ever-growing mountains of garbage that have nowhere to go--has jolted the $70-billion packaging industry, and companies from bottle makers to label-printers are trying to adjust to a new climate.
“There is an immense consciousness about this now,” said William Pflaum, executive director of the Institute of Packaging Professionals. “We are committed to the traditional role of packaging, but we’re also concerned about the environment.”
That concern, many in the industry concede, is relatively new, spurred by fear of a consumer backlash against products perceived to be environmentally unsound as well as a desire to head off legislation that might ban packages that are non-recyclable and non-biodegradable.
“We had our heads in the sand, but we’re trying to reverse that,” said John McKernan, director of marketing at Setco, a large Anaheim-based firm that manufactures plastic bottles for everything from shampoo to spice. “We are threatened by irresponsible legislative action, and we have an image problem, and we are trying to educate the public . . . and educate the politicians.”
Plastic bottles, McKernan said, can in almost all cases be recycled just as glass or aluminum can, and the company is now trying to develop workable methods of getting the plastic bottles back from consumers.
Gordon E. Hart, legislative representative of the Sierra Club, drew grimaces from assembled packaging professionals when he suggested that a lot of packaging products were not necessary to protect and preserve products.
Hart said legislation is necessary to provide incentives for reducing the amount of waste contained in packages. He suggested by way of example a per-unit fee on all packages, with a higher fee for those that cannot be recycled.
And recycling, he emphasized, is not a complete answer; reducing the amount of waste that is produced to begin with is equally critical.
Pflaum of the Institute for Packaging Professionals said industry was not necessarily completely opposed to legislation, but that it wanted desperately to avoid having different sets of regulations in different jurisdictions.
