Feb 27 2009
Innovation can eliminate packaging waste and enable a future where all packaging is recycled or its value is recovered, DuPont’s packaging leader said at the industry’s leadership summit yesterday in Clearwater, Fla.
“The packaging industry has long focused on reducing to the minimum necessary packaging. But this is not enough – we can do more through innovation,” said Bill Weber, vice president and general manager, DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers, during the keynote address at the Packaging Strategies CEO Summit.
Bill called on the packaging industry to take three actions:
- Develop new technologies that will enable broad recycling in the future.
- Set standard measurement and reporting metrics that communicate the footprint for packaging products and the end-of-life recommended disposal method.
- Support the cap-and-trade approach as a way to establish clear, predictable market-based requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, providing a clear pathway to rapid transformational change to the low-carbon economy the industry seeks.
According to Bill, collaboration will be key to developing technologies and systems for end-of-life solutions that enable this vision, but in light of the economic environment, collaborative innovation is important now.