...By which industry, governments, and consumers assume a greater responsibility for ensuring that the manufacture, use, reuse, recycling, and disposal of packaging has a minimum impact on the environment.
The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) have adopted generic descriptions of the responsibilities for each of the three key stakeholder groups.
Industry's prime responsibility is to design packaging according to the 3Rs principles, take steps to divert packaging from disposal, actively use recovered materials, and ensure packaging is properly handled if it must be disposed of.
Governments have a responsibility to promote packaging stewardship and to encourage the widespread recognition and adoption of the 14 supporting principles.
Consumers have a responsibility to make appropriate packaging choices when purchasing products and, where facilities exist, to divert packaging from disposal.
Packaging Stewardship should enable the implementation or improvement of Efficient Recovery Systems for all recyclable materials, whether or not their previous use was for packaging.
Clearly in recent press coverage there are strong statements that recycling systems have not reached Nirvana. While emotional outbursts are not atypical in environmental issues, they contribute little to finding viable solutions.
To make stewardship a truly sustainable activity we need to channel our collective knowledge and energy into appropriately applied problem solving techniques.
Quality management has demonstrated that not only is a zealous link to continuous improvement important, it can add value through creative problem solving. So too can environmental management challenges be tackled.
In this issue of Glass Works we are going to share with you how Consumers Glass sees stewardship within its supply chain.
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