Packaging sustainability
Understand recycled content in packaging
Introduction
Recycled content in packaging plays a crucial role in a circular economy – keeping materials within circulation in the supply chain and keeping it out of landfill or incineration.
As aligned within ISO14021, recycled content is the proportion, by mass, of pre-consumer or post-consumer recycled material in packaging, where:
- pre-consumer material is that which is diverted from the waste stream during a manufacturing process, but excludes rework, regrind of scrap generated in a process that is capable of being reclaimed in the same process that generated it, and
- post-consumer material is that which is generated by end-users of the packaging (households, commercial, industrial or institutional facilities), which can no longer be used for its intended purpose
To keep it simple, it essentially refers to material used in packaging, that has previously been packaging or product that was recycled.
There are many benefits to using recycled content, and some regulations, which may influence your packaging decisions to ensure compliance. These are outlined below.
The benefits of recycled content
There are many benefits to using recycled content:
- Supporting a circular economy: it keeps these valuable resources within the packaging system.
- Reduction in waste to landfill: it keeps valuable resources out of landfill, helping to reduce landfill dependence, and reducing potential for litter.
- Reduced environmental impact: there is less reliance on raw materials which means less dependence on activities such as mining sand for glass, fossil fuel extraction for plastic, destruction of forests for fibre etc. which can be detrimental to the environment.
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