The Australian Packaging Covenant will step up its activities to encourage member companies to adopt sustainable packaging guidelines.

Covenant urges signatories to exceed sustainable packaging targets

13 June 2013

The Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) has reaffirmed its commitment to encouraging capacity building by its signatories, agreeing to continue the focus on developing the ability of signatories to meet and go beyond their APC packaging sustainability commitments.

At its most recent council meeting in Adelaide, the APC said it would be more actively promoting its capacity building programme in coming months.

Capacity building is about industry members implementing the APC's sustainable packaging guidelines, which is expected to lead to an increase in awareness of the role of packaging design and minimising the environmental impact of packaging.

Since 2011 the APC has invested more than half a million dollars into capacity development and said at the council meeting it will continue to develop resources and run workshops focussed on continuous improvement and “going beyond the requirements of the APC”.

It said measured planned over the coming financial year include: in-house waste management resources, recovery facility tours and more design for recovery workshops, life cycle/packaging assessment support and increased support for action plans.

The APC, in its communique after the meeting, said it would also continue its programs to encourage away-from-home recycling and litter mitigation.

Opportunities in the away-from-home area were highlighted in an "Assessment of recycling infrastructure: current status and future opportunities" report” discussed at the meeting.

The report said recovery of packaging materials from the commercial and industry sector (away-from-home) was likely to contribute significantly to the overall recycling rate of packaging.

Discussing litter mitigation, the APC said its key strategies remained on infrastructure, systems and education.

“An integrated approach and the adopting of best practice initiatives are expected to continue to reduce the number of packaging items in the litter stream,” the APC's communique said.