Rekopol – How to design recyclable packaging

What limitations came across on your way?

The goal is to extend entrepreneur’s responsibility. First, the packaging must fulfill production, hygiene and safety requirements, etc., all before it reaches consumers, households. Later the recycling must meet the recycling standards and, additionally, producers will have to cover the costs of selective collection, preparation for recycling, logistics as well as costs of education of our society. This is the core of responsibility extension and we need to implement it in Poland. We want business to participate in adapting Polish law to the new EU requirements which is why we have been analyzing the consequences of implementing the system in Poland for almost 3 years. We study how these six directives could be best implemented in our conditions, where we already have some legislative or operative solutions. We know that we either implement these new requirements in a proper way, and the entrepreneur’s funds will be a real support for the selective collection and preparing for recycling. Or we do it hastily, carelessly and then it may turn out that the industry will pay a lot more and the money will be spent inefficiently. That’s why we participate in this project and develop ecodesign.

How do we work?

As part of the project we also carried out pilot trainings. During the training, designers and packaging promoters were able to learn from experts, practicioners and recyclers what difficulties in recycling result from improper packaging designs. They shared their knowledge and best practices that produced packaging can be easily segregated by inhabitants and end up in recycling plants. The training started with a visit to the laboratory, then the experts explained what packaging recycling is, and the entire training was close with the ecodesign workshop. We devided participants into groups, in each group there was a designer, a marketing person and an environmental activist. Groups had to think about the process of ecodesign as it is still a new topic thta no university teaches about. Rekopol considers such trainings as help for entrepreneurs to make packaging more sustainable, recyclable – so how to design to be able to recycle. In ecodesign process all departments, all people with specialist knowledge should join forces and work together to make packaging fit for the consumer, safe and environmentally friendly as possible as well as profitable.

Is ecodesign profitable?

Weh ave a new prospect ahead of us – circular economy package, where each of us has a place. It is up to us how waste will be segregated and whether it ends up being recycled. It is up tot he designers whether the packaging will be suitable for recycling, whether its components will not interfer with recycling processes. It is up to the marketing departments whether their awareness will allow the balanced packaging enter to enter the market. It is also up tot he authorities which implement legal regulations, how they fix the circular economy package in Poland. The more encouraging the regulations are to the entrepreneurs, the easier and faster the circular economy will become part of our reality.