is an initiative of Valipac
If you want to be really certain that your packaging can be fully recycled at the end of its life, then our Design4Recycling guidelines are for you.
As a company, you can influence the sustainability of your packaging by paying attention to ecodesign from the outset. Valipac lends you a helping hand to implement a responsible packaging design or purchasing policy.
The aim of these guidelines is to incorporate commercial and industrial packaging into a circular model, i.e. to design packaging in such a way that at the end of its life, it can be used as a raw material with properties as close as possible to those of the original material – virgin material.
The circularity of commercial and industrial packaging is determined within the same packaging material group. We do not compare materials with each other.
We have developed these guidelines for all commercial and industrial packaging based on our own experience in the recycling industry and supplemented by the expertise of accredited organisations such as Recyclass, Petcore, KIDV, CEPI, Filpap, 4EverGreen, etc.
They are applicable in the current collection and recycling scenarios, which means that they are regularly adapted in line with new developments.
The recyclability of commercial and industrial packaging is determined from the point of view of mechanical recycling and not of chemical recycling, this latter technology having not yet been accredited as “recycling” by the European Commission.
General
Before we get to the heart of the matter, here are some basic principles that you can apply when choosing or designing your packaging:
Non-recyclable packaging is packaging which as waste is not repurposed as a new product within the usual practices of collection, sorting and processing.
In practice, the following may be noted:
All commercial and industrial packaging in wood, metal and glass are considered recyclable.
The composition of packaging determines its recyclability at the end of its life. While most commercial and industrial packaging is recyclable, the applications of some recycled packaging will remain limited. This means that the recycled material cannot be used as a raw material for the production of new packaging.
With a view to circularity, the packaging will be designed in such a way that, after recycling, it has the same characteristics as the virgin material. The recycled material has little or no influence on colour, strength and applications.
Certain choices will have a greater influence on the possibilities of using the material after it has been recycled. In some cases, the recycled material can be reused as packaging, but with concessions regarding colour, transparency, strength or density. In other cases, the recycled material can no longer be used as packaging, but for the manufacture of other articles.
