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News | New Products
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SPGPrints Screen Makes Packaging Glitter
RotaMesh Glitter Screen allows user to incorporate reflective inks for premium labels and packaging as well as security uses
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Maxcess to Announce New Sensors
The SE-26B Line Guide Sensor and new DSE Digital Sensors will be launched at Labelexpo Europe
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PCMC Acquires Graphbury Machines
The transaction brings to PCMC machinery and engineering solutions for the flexible packaging industry
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PC Industries to Show Lineup at Labelexpo
Among the offerings will be web inspection systems for both in-line and off-line use and both wide and narrow webs
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Demirag Announces Folder/Gluer
The DEMAK folder/gluer handles several materials and widths
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Hamillroad to Launch Screening System
Bellissima DMS Digitally Modulated Screening for flexo is said to provide benefits that include high quality printing and reduced press issues
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Hayden Offers In-House Coating Services
The company will resurface rolls, among other services, at customer plants
White Papers
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• BOPP Laminate Structures for “Over-the-Mountain” VFFS Pouch Applications
• How a Full Lineup of Coatings Can Transform Packaging
Expert Advice
Marketing Report How-To
Marketing Mojo Archive Stephanie Millman's Bio
The European Directive on Packaging and Packaging waste
- Published: Wednesday, 01 May 2002 07:00, Written by Corey M. Reardon, AWA Alexander Watson Assoc.
Environmental concerns led the European Commission to establish a set of rules for waste management in the European packaging industry. The reduction of landfill, and parallel increase in re-use, recycling, and incineration, were the prime aims of the Packaging Waste Directive (94/62/EC). Individual EU member states were required to implement it by 2001, but even today, most member states are not ready.
Difficulty arises with materials such as release liner. Since it is technically not applied to the package, does a release liner constitute packaging waste or not?
Most of Europe classifies release liner as an integral part of a self-adhesive label stock laminate and therefore “packaging waste.” This has not been the case in the U.K., but recent U.K. government and industry discussions point to a change to the more general European view that release liners are an intrinsic part of packaging.
Although industry associations including FINAT and EPSMA lobby strongly for an appropriate waste management platform, no solution has presented itself so far.
Whatever the final solution, it will have an indelible impact on the packaging industry and on supply side characteristics throughout the value chain — not just in Europe but eventually elsewhere. Environmental issues certainly are not going to disappear from anyone's agenda.
AWA Alexander Watson Assoc. is a leading international market research consultant company for the converting and packaging industries.