News Items - International Association of Packaging Research Institutes
Adapting activities to real-world changes
 
What do changes to regulations and standards mean for the packaging research and education sector? What new opportunities are there for IAPRI members to embrace? Arguably, the driving force behind many of these changes – and resulting adaptations – is the sustainability agenda.

One example of this would be the current work on international standards for Chain of Custody (CoC) systems – an area chosen by Takehiro Kaneko of the Japan Packaging Research Institute (part of the Japan Packaging Institute - JPI) for his keynote presentation at IAPRI’s 23rd World Packaging Conference last June.
 
Kaneko, who is manager of the JPI’s Transport Packaging Division, updated his audience on the umbrella standard ISO 22095 on CoC in general, published in 2020, but also on why CoC safeguards were required at all. While the model could be used for anything from cocoa and palm oil to forestry products, the overarching aim was to reassure stakeholders – including consumers – about a given product’s sustainability.
 
During his June presentation, he also explained the contrasting approaches to combining different material fractions (such as virgin and recycled) within a given substrate. Where each run of product combines these components in uniform, preset proportions, this is an example of Controlled Blending.
 
Mass Balance standards
 
Another approach to combining different specified characteristics is Mass Balance. “Here, the percentage of these characteristics contained in the output product is varied by production lot or batch,” he said. “This is a difference from Controlled Blending.”
 
Mass Balance has already been proposed by the plastics packaging supply chain as a model for guaranteeing that certain proportions of chemically-recycled polymer are contained in a given item of packaging over time.
 
A further CoC approach is Book & Claim. Other CoC models, including Controlled Blending and Mass Balance involve administrative records being transferred with the materials or product in the supply chain. “But Book & Claim is a CoC model where the flow of records is not necessarily tied to the physical flow of materials,” he said.
 
In a further January update for IAPRI, Kaneko says the ISO Technical Committee TC308 is making progress in developing specific standards on Mass Balance and Book & Claim systems. The committee is currently at the stage of considering different cases under each model. He confirms that Mass Balance could be applied to recyclate of different kinds, from recycled paper to chemically-recycled plastics.
 
Could Book & Claim, along with Mass Balance, be relevant for packaging materials? “This is of great interest to us, although nothing has yet been discussed about whether it applies to packaging materials,” he reports.
 
There are some national examples, with the Netherlands launching a project to develop a central certification scheme for CoCs, though not specifically implicating packaging. “Germany has proposed a certification scheme for recycled plastics, though the application is not yet limited,” Kaneko adds.
 
“I personally believe that it is necessary to further define standards for each individual business,” he says, adding that nothing has yet been decided on this.
 
He recommends that IAPRI or its members should participate in ISO/TC308 and share information. “Of course, the application of CoC is not a mandatory requirement at this time, but there is the possibility that it will develop as a business requirement in the future, similar to the ISO 9000 and 14000 series,” he concludes.
 
This is one area where new research themes could open up as standards take shape. As we have seen in recent IAPRI articles, this has already happened in other increasingly important areas of sustainability, such as reusable and returnable packaging. Here, for example, the University of Twente and Technical University of Delft (TUDelft) in the Netherlands are among those taking a lead in their projects.
 
When it comes to biopolymers, IAPRI members probably have many more years’ experience of developing and applying these materials than most in industry. With an increasing emphasis on packaging from sustainable sources, the importance of biobased materials is only going to increase. But while European regulators, for instance, tend to view them favourably, scaled-up commercial applications still seem a long way off.
 
Packaging taxes
 
Many of the sustainability, extended producer responsibility (EPR) and circular-economy changes currently being introduced operate at the level of individual Member States within the EU, and at state level in the US. It seems important to acknowledge that, while research themes will evolve to reflect new industry needs and priorities, there are other IAPRI member services and activities which are impacted by changes to regulations and standards.
 
So, for instance, Spain’s ITENE reports that at the beginning of this year, the country’s so-called ‘plastic tax’ came into force as part of wider-ranging environmental legislation. The tax applies to the manufacture, import or acquisition of non-reusable plastics packaging  incorporating virgin polymer, and involves a €0.45 per kilo levy on non-recycled plastics content. Those who do not want to pay the tax must demonstrate either the possibility of reuse or the inclusion of recyclate.
 
As head of packaging and the circular economy unit César Aliaga explains to IAPRI, ITENE is able to support companies taking the first of these two routes. It does this by applying the UNE-EN 13429:2005 standard on ‘packaging reusability’. “Furthermore, in the event that the packaging is not yet reusable, our research center helps to develop and implement those aspects that are necessary  to be able to consider the packaging reusable,” he says. Those aspects would include both the design of the pack itself and any reconditioning, refilling and reuse systems that lie behind it. 
 
The second option, of demonstrating the incorporation of recycled content, highlights the often fast-moving nature of much sustainability-related regulation. For this year, Aliaga points out, it will be sufficient for businesses to provide a declaration of responsibility from the materials supplier. But from 2024, certification of the recycled content will be required.
 
“To prove the recycled content of a pack, ITENE takes into account the requirements of the UNE-EN 15343:2008 standard on the traceability and conformity assessment of recycled content, on which one of the RecyClass certifications is based,” he says.
 
ITENE is a certifying body accredited to RecyClass, which is operated by Plastics Recyclers Europe.
 
The end of 2022 also saw the coming into law of a new Royal Decree on Packaging and Packaging Waste for Spain. New measures include those aimed at waste prevention, the promotion of bulk sales of unpackaged foods, increases in the adoption of reusable packaging and the promotion of recycling. An EPR system is also under development.
 
As Aliaga explains, the first step for any business is to ascertain whether its packaging complies with the regulation. “If it meets requirements, we prove it,” he says. “We assess the recyclability, compostability or biodegradability of materials, as well as reuse processes.” Similarly, in the event of non-compliance, ITENE can support companies in making necessary changes.
 
Of course, this type of regulation also lends itself to industry communication via seminars and other events. ITENE reports that its January conference on the Royal Decree was attended by 1,350 professionals from 900 companies.
 
Not every IAPRI member organization will see kind of communication role – as opposed to a research role – as its priority. But individuals within member institutes have become experts in many aspects of sustainability, and that kind of status should never be dismissed too lightly.
 

Published: 01/30/23