Categories of packaging Primary

This involves all packaging that is in direct contact with the product. Hence primary packaging could be soft drink bottles, sweet wrappers or the inner bag of cereal boxes. Primary packaging can also be described as part of the product. If sweets come with a sweet dispenser that pops the sweets into the hand, that sweet dispenser would be known as primary packaging. Primary packaging performs the dual purpose of protecting the product and advertising the product for the manufacturer.

Secondary

This is designed to collate primary packaging so that it can be handled manually. Hence a box, containing many soft drinks, or shrink wrap would be secondary packaging. Secondary packaging is used so that goods

Tertiary

This is used to transport products in large numbers. Hence a crate or pallet containing many small shrink wraps is tertiary packaging. In fact tertiary packaging can also come in large shrink wraps with small ones inside.

Environment and legislation

The Environment

The most obvious solution to help protect the environment from unnecessary packaging waste is to produce less. This means a reduction in the quantity of materials and other resources used in packaging. Packaging manufacturers are investing and researching into making packaging that is lightweight, compact and made from recycled materials, whilst using renewable resources, wherever possible.

The next solution being adopted by the packaging industry, is recovery of material and energy from waste packaging. This can be done by reusing or recycling packaging or by incinerating and recovering the energy value of the waste.

Finally and inevitably there must be landfill sites. For certain products and under certain circumstances this is the only applicable solution.

Further Information

In legislative terms, the 1994 European Parliament Council Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste, obliges all Member States to develop a rigorous waste management policy. The main aims of the Directive were to reduce the impact of packaging on the environment and ensure the functioning of a single European market for packaging and packaging products.

Industry example. Pro Carton Overview

Over 50% of cartons used in Europe are made of recovered fibre, i.e. waste paper.

The diagram below shows the lifecycle of cartonboard and cartons (fibre-based packaging) that timber and paper waste is used to manufacture.

It is sent to printers or converters in the form of sheets or reels and then printed, cut and creased and folded and glued to make cartons or boxes.

Any waste at this stage can be collected and sent back to the cartonboard mills for use as raw material to make more cartonboard.

The cartons are then used by a packer filler to put the product into crates and it is then distributed to the retail sector. When the cartons are disposed of as waste after use, they can be collected and reused as raw material in the cartonboard Mills.

Excellent representations of consumers' preference for carton (predominantly fibre-based) packaging are illustrated by the surveys conducted on behalf of Pro Carton. In one survey an overwhelming 41% preferred carton packaging as opposed to other types, such as tin or glass.