Pregis, a leading protective packaging materials and automated systems manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, USA, has joined the European initiative CEFLEX, the Circular Economy Flexible Packaging consortium of companies and associations representing the entire flexible packaging value chain.
CEFLEX has established a roadmap for flexible packaging for the years 2020 to 2025, that includes widely recognised design guidelines and actions to, among other things increase recycling efforts across the EU. By 2025, there will be an established collection, sorting and reprocessing infrastructure/economy developed for post-consumer flexible packaging across Europe.
The initiatives also include a business case component which calls for recycled flexible packaging to be returned to the economy in competitive pricing and quantities.
Clint Smith, director of sustainable packaging, at Pregis, explaining why the company had chosen to participate in the initiatives said that a critical component of improving recycling and reuse metrics is to have a system in place that will help direct manufacturing best practices, increase recycled content in film structures, promote ways to increase quantities collected and help identify downstream uses for that recycled material.
“In order to accomplish that, all of the participants in the value stream have to be included. CEFLEX is spearheading those efforts for the European flexible packaging value chain and we are happy to be part of helping establish a solution,” he said.
Pregis recently also joined the Alliance to End Plastic Waste which has a $1.5 billion investment goal over the next five years to help end plastic waste in the environment and has partnered with How2Recycle to provide consumer-friendly recycling instructions printed onto film-based products to increase the adoption of recycling practices.