Minimising Packaging
FDF members are committed to making significant reductions in the levels of
packaging reaching households and to advising consumers on how best to recycle or
otherwise recover used packaging.
The Challenge
Packaging protects food and drink products from damage and contamination. It
therefore helps avoid products becoming food waste which has a much greater
environmental impact. Nevertheless,
excessive packaging itself is wasteful. It also
has
adverse implications for global warming and landfilling.
Reducing,
recovering and
recycling packaging waste is an environmental
priority.
Industry has
been making
progress. For example, it recovered 6.4m
tonnes of packing waste in
2006, almost
double
that in 1998. FDF members
have
joined Valpak and similar
schemes, to meet
their legal obligations to
recover
and recycle packaging
waste.
However, businesses in general can go further. In particular, they can help to
reduce the amount of packaging going to households in the first place.
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FDF's Ambition
FDF is committed to encouraging significant numbers of its members to sign up to
the 'Courtauld Commitment' managed by Waste and Resources
Action
Programme
(WRAP). The Commitment aims to
initially design out the
growth
in
packaging
reaching households and then to achieve absolute reductions
in
the
packaging
reaching households.
FDF members are also committed to working with partners, such as WRAP, to
identify the best packaging choices for food and drink products, balancing the needs
of the environment, product
protection and food safety.
FDF members are committed to providing consumers with information to maximise
the recovery of used food and drink packaging. This will include working with
partners such as WRAP on a
common labelling system to raise consumer awareness
of
the recycling and recovery possibilities.
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Delivering Our Ambition
FDF will work closely with WRAP to significantly increase the number of food and
drink manufacturers who have signed up to the Courtauld Commitment. We will work
with them and other partners
to raise consumer awareness about best practice
for
used packaging.
We will publish the aggregate contribution of FDF's members to
WRAP’s
targets
annually.
FDF will also press the Government to develop the infrastructure necessary to
encourage cost effective collection and recovery of used packaging, including
biodegradable and compostable
packaging.
See Minimising Packaging Waste Company Case Studies
The information in this section is taken from a document entitled The Environment: Making a real difference (pdf, 1.4Mb) published by FDF in October 2007 .
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Last reviewed: 22 Nov 2007