Packaging in the Circular Economy A Sustainable Business!

Is packaging one of the problems for sustainability? Absolutely not! Actually its one of the solutions for Sustainability.

WPO believes that the world must change. We must be determined and move quickly from a linear economy to a circular economy in order to maintain the world sustainable for the future human generations. WPO supports a circular economy and strongly advises whole packaging industry to move towards design, production and use of packaging that complies with principle of a circular economy. WPO believes that in the future all packaging should be based on renewable raw material and recyclable. If the packaging is based on non-renewable raw material it must always be 100 % recyclable. Only packaging that is intended for continuous and long-term reuse can be based on non-renewable raw material and not be recyclable.  'Antro Saila, Vice President-Sustainability at WPO'

Packaging can play several roles in a circular economy. Possible roles of packaging:

1. Packaging can contribute to reducing waste and thus making a circular economy more efficient (eg. by prolonging shelf life or protecting packaged goods)
2. Packaging can be reused (eg. b2b transport packaging inside and/or between industries and trade or in deposit systems in b2c trade)
3. Packaging materials can be recycled
4. High energy content packaging (e.g. fibre and plastic) can be used for energy generation when it can no longer be reused or recycled

Packaging can play a significant role in reverse logistics which will be an important part of future circular economy. Former waste will become a valuable raw material and should be treated more carefully than before. Reverse logistics is an area of great potential for packaging industry in the future.

As a circular economy becomes mainstream in the future energy generation will not be preferred but actually the last choice and used only when all other possibilities have been use