Greiner Packaging UK & Ireland joins Recoup for scientific information on circular plastics economy
12 Jul 2022 --- Greiner Packaging UK & Ireland (GPUK) is joining Recoup – a UK organization providing guidance across the plastics recycling value chain – to secure circular and practical solutions for plastic resources in the UK and worldwide.
Recoup’s aim is to help improve plastic recycling levels, ensure plastic uses resources efficiently, and protect the environment.
While these aims are unchanged, Stuart Foster, CEO at Recoup, adds that “requirements and expectations have changed a great deal over three decades, from producer responsibility to the circular economy.”
Providing intel
Rachel Sheldon, sustainability and innovation manager at GPUK, claims that working with Recoup provides GPUK with “a wide range of clear and balanced information, backed by science.”
Meanwhile, Foster elaborates to PackagingInsights about what this information entails, saying: “GPUK wishes to provide its customers with the reassurance that they can avoid the dangers of greenwashing by adopting packaging which measurably improves their carbon footprint and sustainability position. Working with Recoup gives the company access to this invaluable pool of information.”
“With so much opinion around environmental and plastic issues,” he says, “Recoup’s work continues to be based on evidence, research and facts with unbiased integrity. As an organization, Recoup helps demonstrate accountability and transparency, through an independent lens.”
Sheldon says that the K3 cardboard-plastic solution is one of the most sustainable packaging solutions on the market.Curtailing carbon
Sheldon leads the process of joining Recoup. She explains that after working in customer-facing roles for more than a decade, she understands what companies want and need to know about the environmental sustainability of their packaging choices.
“Delivering the most [environmentally] sustainable solutions and properly explaining their benefits and advantages” is essential, she says. Sheldon is “currently looking to gain more and better data around CO2 reduction through life cycle assessments of all our products.”
Regarding the company’s carbon emissions, Sheldon tells us that “GPUK has developed solutions which reduce CO2 emissions by optimizing the packaging, in line with its Design for Recycling guidelines.”
“Its K3 cardboard-plastic solution, for example, is one of the most sustainable packaging solutions on the market, with a carbon footprint that is significantly smaller than that of alternative packaging solutions,” she affirms.
Speaking at Packaging Innovations 2022, Sheldon and sales and marketing director Julie Eller demonstrated how the new K3 r100 cup cardboard-plastic cup can be easily separated for recycling.
Looking to the future, Sheldon says that GPUK remains committed to the HolyGrail 2.0 digital watermarks initiative. The goal of the initiative is to prove that digital watermarking technologies can be used for the accurate sorting of post-consumer packaging waste on a large scale.
“GPUK is actively investigating more and better data around CO2 reduction through life cycle assessments of all its products. Being able to benchmark against others through membership of Recoup makes a significant contribution,” she concludes.
By Mieke Meintjes
