Facing the Packaging Predicament : Environment: Industry officials want to put out a pretty product but, at the same time, address the public’s growing environmental concerns.
The 7,200 conventioneers who gathered in Anaheim on 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 stood undisturbed.
But any doubts that the industry has an image problem were quickly put to rest by the cover story in the latest issue of 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.
“We believe in recycling as the primary method for reducing waste,” McKernan said.
Lord Label Systems Inc., a Fullerton firm that produces 50 million labels a day, has similarly felt the impact of the anti-garbage movement.
“We have to be concerned about the base materials, and we try to convince our customers to use biodegradable materials,” said James Gudat, sales and marketing engineer.
The company has revamped some product lines during the past several years, Gudat said, and he estimated that 70% of the firm’s labels are now biodegradable as opposed to only 10% two years ago.
Few companies in the packaging industry appear to be touting the environmental benefits of their products as a marketing technique, as companies in the oil and food industries have. But such a trend may be developing: The design contest sponsored by the Institute for Packaging Professionals added a category this year for the package “that has the most favorable impact on the environment.”
Top honors in the new category were taken by Rehrig Pacific Co., a Los Angeles firm that designed a new container for the transport and display of carbonated drinks. The container, which is designed to replace cardboard shipping cartons, is made of recyclable plastic and is reusable.
And Robert F. Testin, associate professor of packaging science at Clemson University, said that “some companies have moved environmental concerns to the top of their agenda in the design and development of packaging. The strategic planners are now convinced” of the seriousness of the environmental impact issue, he added.
Still, making packages that produce less garbage goes against the grain of the packaging industry. Testin noted that from an environmental point of view, the ideal package is one that weighs nothing and takes up no volume--and such a package wouldn’t sell for much, either.
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. He was even forced to admit that, yes, he himself used microwave trays made of compound materials that are among the least reusable substances known to man.
And contrary to the claims of some industry spokesmen, Hart said: “We haven’t seen evidence of any big efforts on the part of industry to seriously take into account the environmental impacts of their products.”
Legislation, according to Hart, 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: “Source reduction”--environmental code for 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. And Testin said that goal-oriented legislation that encouraged public-private cooperation in reducing waste was much more desirable than measures aimed at specific products or product categories.
But it’s unlikely that most in the packaging industry are yet prepared to take what Hart defined as the critical first step in tackling the garbage problem: “Just as with drugs, we have to admit that we are addicts, and that we are addicted to an environmentally destructive, resource-depleting life style.”
BACKGROUND
By its own estimate, the packaging industry accounts for 30% of solid waste in local landfills. Environmentalists and municipalities eager to reduce the burden on dumps have proposed or adopted hundreds of laws which restrict certain types of packaging.
