Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) changes the question businesses need to ask about packaging.
Instead of simply asking, “What happens to our packaging after someone uses it?”, businesses need to consider, “What responsibility do we have for the packaging we put on the market in the first place?”
EPR policies make producers, importers and retailers more responsible for products and packaging throughout their life cycle, including when they become waste. The aim is to shift more of the cost and responsibility away from councils and communities and towards the businesses making packaging decisions.
New Zealand already has a product stewardship framework under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008. Plastic packaging has been declared a priority product and the Government has consulted on a broader EPR framework.
The final requirements and timing are still developing, but the direction is clear: businesses will need to understand and account for the packaging they place on the market. For many food and beverage businesses, regulation may not be the first challenge. The first challenge will be data.
Do you know what packaging you use?
Most businesses know what their packaging costs and whether it protects their product. Fewer have one reliable source showing every packaging format, material and component across their product range.
A single product may include a bottle, lid, seal, label, adhesive, sleeve, carton and transport packaging. These components may come from different suppliers and use several materials. Information may sit across procurement systems, spreadsheets, emails and supplier documents.
That makes seemingly simple questions difficult to answer. How much packaging did your business place on the New Zealand market last year? How much was plastic? What proportion contained recycled material? Which components can be collected and recycled in New Zealand?
If finding the answers would take weeks, now is the time to improve your data.
More from Barbara Nebel, CEO of thinkstep-anz in the latest issue here
