The Waste Fund Packaging Foundation in the Netherlands has proposed a new plastics guide that aims to help municipalities, importers, producers and recyclers create a 100 percent fossil-free, zero-damage packaging system for people and the environment by 2050. The guidelines focus on reducing plastic packaging to only what is necessary for the application. The remaining packaging must be of high quality, reusable and easily recyclable.
According to Hurst Klein Lankhorst of the Waste Foundation, plastic is too useful to be discarded entirely. "Light, hygienic and strong, it keeps products fresh and prevents food waste," she says. For a sustainable future, we need plastics, for example, in solar panels, lightweight cars and to prevent food waste. The downside is that the more plastic we use, the more harmful effects it has on our environment and our health."
The foundation says the Netherlands needs to find a balance between the pros and cons of plastics, which requires more than just optimizing or innovating existing systems. It requires "a different way of thinking about the production and use of plastic packaging.
The plastics guidelines set a goal for society to reduce the use of plastic packaging by using it only in essential applications. By reducing and reusing plastic packaging and preventing waste, new fossil raw materials will no longer be needed to make plastic packaging.
This will require manufacturers to improve the quality of their packaging. Municipalities responsible for waste collection must improve their collection systems to make them more uniform so that Dutch residents know what is expected of them when disposing of plastic packaging and to make quality management easier. The foundation said that "this would only be possible with one or two national unified systems," rather than the various different municipal systems and "good communication with citizens" as is the case now.
"In the future, consumers must be able to trust that if there is plastic packaging around a product, it is indeed necessary and that this packaging will not be harmful to people or the environment. In addition, there will be more packaging that consumers can re-can themselves."
