Packaging is an essential element to consumer products. Requiring the use of biodegradable or non-petroleum based packaging would severely impact the packaging market and could have serious detrimental impacts on recycling efforts and land-fill requirements. Such a mandate could also have a huge impact on natural resources such as forests and plants that are used to create natural and biodegradable packages. For example, more trees would need to be cut down to provide paperboard and natural resins if all products were mandated to be packaged in biodegradable packages.
Additionally, there simply is no alternative to non-petroleum based packages for a vast array of product packages. Such a mandate would result in safety hazards for transporting products, spill and breakage issues, product shortages, and dangerous product/package interactions.
While it may be appropriate to encourage biodegradable packages where appropriate, it is simply infeasible to consider such a mandate within any foreseeable timeframe, given the likelihood of adverse and even life-threatening events that would result if such a requirement was created.
The State of California should not require reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum based packaging. First, there is no inherent environmental or human health benefit to natural-sourced (non-petroleum based) plastics over petroleum based plastics. In fact, there is much research and anecdotal evidence that manipulation of commodity markets to require natural-based content in fuels and other products leads to greater negative impacts on climate change by fallow land being put into production, and increased food prices through diversion of food crops to fuels and materials. The impact is greatest on the poor, so the effort is counter to most sustainability programs.
To the extent the State is concerned about packaging, it should focus on sustainability metrics. There are a number of successful sustainability initiatives related to packaging such as the Sustainable Packaging Coalition http://www.sustainablepackaging.org/). The State should be partnering with academia, industry and other stakeholders, and leveraging its own resources to arrive at the best outcomes rather than taking a command-and-control approach and mandating requirements that may have regrettable results in the future.
GMA supports the improvement of existing recycling programs. GMA has serious concerns about a new mandate requiring reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum-based packaging. A packaging mandate for reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum based packaging could severely harm the packaging market and undermine recycling efforts. California should carefully consider potential tradeoffs and concerns. For example: • What are the life-cycle impacts of substitute packaging, including effectiveness (such as compatibility with contents), cost and environmental and health impacts? • Is there really a human health and environmental benefit to the alternatives compared with current packaging? • To what extent would a new mandate for agricultural commodity-based packaging exacerbate the increased food prices and adverse environmental impacts from the diversion of food commodities to biofuels? • To what extent would this adversely affect the poor? • Should a better infrastructure for recycling be pursued? Requiring reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum based packaging raises a number of concerns which would need to be addressed fully, including the potential negative impact of such a policy on the environment and consumer health and safety.
- Watch it on the biodegradable requirement. You’ll need to require each household and company to have backyard composting or a lot of stinky compostable trash on the curb. - Might as well ban packaging altogether. After banning automobiles to solve the climate change crisis, everyone will need to walk to get what they need anyway and can pick things up in their reusable, organic cloth bags and hand-thrown pottery jugs (or old margarine containers they have hoarded).
Seriously, most packaging is there for good reason – to protect the user and/or to eliminate damaged goods waste. Reusable and biodegradable may or may not make sense depending on the need and likely disposal path. Petroleum based packaging that aids reusability and/or recycling may be better than diverting food based products to make “biodegradable” packaging that ends up in a landfill anyway. Encourage companies to think about the best life cycle solutions. Light-weighting that leads to failure doesn’t help anyone. But perhaps a consumption tax based on weight that is there for educational (and not punitive) purposes would be useful.
Requiring all reusable or biodegradable packaging is not currently feasible for some products. Even if it were, the consequences to the environment and natural resources could be disastrous. Careful thought and planning are necessary for changes of this magnitude or unintended consequences will certainly result. For example, the current ethanol craze is actually proving to be adverse to global warming and to food supply.
Improving the current recycling systems and making them easier, more economical and more accessible is probably a better approach.
Again, this should be based on realistic expectations of ratios of types of packaging that can be targeted in specific sectors, such as food, medicines, durable goods, etc. Some of these areas will be more aligned with special packaging types exactly for reasons of safety and sustainability. The data involved should also be compiled and categorized correctly before rollout to ensure the impact is real. In other words, standards of re-use and biodegradation should be established and communicated before regulations spawn a lot of misinformation and impractical compliance. Otherwise, as an example, one might have the little recycling triangle symbol with numbers 3-9 showing compliance while only numbers 1-2 can really be recycled easily and conveniently. A five and ten year plan should be developed with milestones and goals targeted during that span, with great consideration to products, such as pharmaceuticals and biologics, that may require other packing to maintain safety and efficacy of the product.
The state of California should not dictate the source and type of packaging material used by the public or industry. The application, storage conditions, physical properties, destination and safety characteristics of the material being packaged should dictate the containment type. The question should read, "Should the state.....?" and NOT "By what date should the state....?".
This is a clear example of over-reaching regulation that seems way beyond what the Green Chemistry inititiative should address.
Web Coordinator
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Reader Comments (7)
Packaging is an essential element to consumer products. Requiring the use of biodegradable or non-petroleum based packaging would severely impact the packaging market and could have serious detrimental impacts on recycling efforts and land-fill requirements. Such a mandate could also have a huge impact on natural resources such as forests and plants that are used to create natural and biodegradable packages. For example, more trees would need to be cut down to provide paperboard and natural resins if all products were mandated to be packaged in biodegradable packages.
Additionally, there simply is no alternative to non-petroleum based packages for a vast array of product packages. Such a mandate would result in safety hazards for transporting products, spill and breakage issues, product shortages, and dangerous product/package interactions.
While it may be appropriate to encourage biodegradable packages where appropriate, it is simply infeasible to consider such a mandate within any foreseeable timeframe, given the likelihood of adverse and even life-threatening events that would result if such a requirement was created.
The State of California should not require reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum based packaging. First, there is no inherent environmental or human health benefit to natural-sourced (non-petroleum based) plastics over petroleum based plastics. In fact, there is much research and anecdotal evidence that manipulation of commodity markets to require natural-based content in fuels and other products leads to greater negative impacts on climate change by fallow land being put into production, and increased food prices through diversion of food crops to fuels and materials. The impact is greatest on the poor, so the effort is counter to most sustainability programs.
To the extent the State is concerned about packaging, it should focus on sustainability metrics. There are a number of successful sustainability initiatives related to packaging such as the Sustainable Packaging Coalition http://www.sustainablepackaging.org/). The State should be partnering with academia, industry and other stakeholders, and leveraging its own resources to arrive at the best outcomes rather than taking a command-and-control approach and mandating requirements that may have regrettable results in the future.
GMA supports the improvement of existing recycling programs. GMA has serious concerns about a new mandate requiring reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum-based packaging. A packaging mandate for reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum based packaging could severely harm the packaging market and undermine recycling efforts. California should carefully consider potential tradeoffs and concerns. For example:
• What are the life-cycle impacts of substitute packaging, including effectiveness (such as compatibility with contents), cost and environmental and health impacts?
• Is there really a human health and environmental benefit to the alternatives compared with current packaging?
• To what extent would a new mandate for agricultural commodity-based packaging exacerbate the increased food prices and adverse environmental impacts from the diversion of food commodities to biofuels?
• To what extent would this adversely affect the poor?
• Should a better infrastructure for recycling be pursued?
Requiring reusable or biodegradable non-petroleum based packaging raises a number of concerns which would need to be addressed fully, including the potential negative impact of such a policy on the environment and consumer health and safety.
- Watch it on the biodegradable requirement. You’ll need to require each household and company to have backyard composting or a lot of stinky compostable trash on the curb.
- Might as well ban packaging altogether. After banning automobiles to solve the climate change crisis, everyone will need to walk to get what they need anyway and can pick things up in their reusable, organic cloth bags and hand-thrown pottery jugs (or old margarine containers they have hoarded).
Seriously, most packaging is there for good reason – to protect the user and/or to eliminate damaged goods waste. Reusable and biodegradable may or may not make sense depending on the need and likely disposal path. Petroleum based packaging that aids reusability and/or recycling may be better than diverting food based products to make “biodegradable” packaging that ends up in a landfill anyway. Encourage companies to think about the best life cycle solutions. Light-weighting that leads to failure doesn’t help anyone. But perhaps a consumption tax based on weight that is there for educational (and not punitive) purposes would be useful.
Requiring all reusable or biodegradable packaging is not currently feasible for some products. Even if it were, the consequences to the environment and natural resources could be disastrous. Careful thought and planning are necessary for changes of this magnitude or unintended consequences will certainly result. For example, the current ethanol craze is actually proving to be adverse to global warming and to food supply.
Improving the current recycling systems and making them easier, more economical and more accessible is probably a better approach.
Again, this should be based on realistic expectations of ratios of types of packaging that can be targeted in specific sectors, such as food, medicines, durable goods, etc. Some of these areas will be more aligned with special packaging types exactly for reasons of safety and sustainability. The data involved should also be compiled and categorized correctly before rollout to ensure the impact is real. In other words, standards of re-use and biodegradation should be established and communicated before regulations spawn a lot of misinformation and impractical compliance. Otherwise, as an example, one might have the little recycling triangle symbol with numbers 3-9 showing compliance while only numbers 1-2 can really be recycled easily and conveniently. A five and ten year plan should be developed with milestones and goals targeted during that span, with great consideration to products, such as pharmaceuticals and biologics, that may require other packing to maintain safety and efficacy of the product.
Never.
The state of California should not dictate the source and type of packaging material used by the public or industry. The application, storage conditions, physical properties, destination and safety characteristics of the material being packaged should dictate the containment type. The question should read, "Should the state.....?" and NOT "By what date should the state....?".
This is a clear example of over-reaching regulation that seems way beyond what the Green Chemistry inititiative should address.