In this White Paper, Jenny Wassenaar, VP Sustainability at Trivium, highlights how brand owners could take the next step and show that their packaging is truly sustainable.

“Cradle-to-Gate, Cradle-to-Grave, and Circular LCAs have a role to play, but a more comprehensive Holistic Packaging Sustainability Assessment could give brand owners even more compelling sustainability credentials. Such an assessment would take into account all aspects relating to circularity such as recycled content, recycling rate, intrinsic yield, and substitution of primary resources.”

Real-world performance of packaging materials varies widely. For example, 80% of metal is recycled in Europe, but only 41% of plastics. Jenny underlines that steel and aluminum also perform particularly well when a wider view of recycling is adopted.

“Metal packaging is infinitely recyclable without a loss of quality or downcycling, and recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy required for primary production. We know that packaging is a valuable communication channel for encouraging consumers to recycle waste, and prominent logos such as the ‘Metal Recycles Forever’ logo are part of this.”

The White paper is available for download at TriviumPackaging.com.