Optimising packaging

Product packaging has many purposes, including protecting, preserving, and promoting products, thereby contributing to overall business success and consumer satisfaction.

Here are some of the main roles of the packaging of detergents and maintenance products:

Protection: Packaging provides a protective barrier for products, safeguarding them from external factors such as moisture, air, light, and physical damage during transportation, handling, and storage. This helps ensure that products reach consumers in optimal condition.
Preservation: Packaging helps extend the shelf life of perishable goods by preventing spoilage, decay, or contamination. It can include features such as airtight seals or outer protective boxes to preserve the quality of the product.
Information: Packaging serves as a communication tool, conveying essential information about the product, such as ingredients, usage instructions and safety warnings. This information is crucial for consumers to make informed purchasing decisions.
Branding and marketing: Packaging is a key element of a product’s branding and marketing strategy. Well-designed and attractive packaging can capture the attention of consumers, differentiate a product from competitors, and contribute to brand recognition. Packaging design can influence consumer perceptions and purchasing behaviour.
Convenience: Packaging is designed to make products convenient for consumers to use, handle, and store. Easy-to-open packaging, individual dosages, and resealable features contribute to consumer convenience and satisfaction.
Logistics and distribution: Efficient packaging facilitates the handling, storage, and transportation of products throughout the supply chain. It can help optimise storage and packing space, reducing transportation costs and emissions and enhance overall logistics efficiency.
Safety: Packaging can incorporate safety features to prevent vulnerable persons having access to hazardous products. Child resistant fastenings, seals, automatic dispensing and dosing systems provide assurance to users that the product can be both applied and stored safely.
Regulatory compliance: Packaging often needs to comply with various regulations and standards related to safety, labelling, and environmental impact. Meeting these requirements is essential for legal compliance and user safety and determines what appears on a product label.

Our industry uses a range of packaging that includes:

paper based packaging, e.g. folding cartons for dishwashing tablets;
rigid plastic packaging e.g. HDPE and PET for bottles;
flexible plastic packaging e.g. plastic pouches for laundry gel capsules;
metal packaging e.g. for maintenance and air care aerosols.

How packaging is regulated in the EU

Packaging in the European Union (EU) is subject to regulations that aim to ensure the safety of packaging materials, minimise environmental impact, and provide consumers with necessary information. The key regulatory framework for packaging in the EU is the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (94/62/EC). The Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) aims to continuously improve the environmental performance of packaging and facilitate the correct functioning of the EU Internal Market to protect free circulation of packaging and packaged goods across borders.

Our industry has an ambitious agenda of activities that address the challenges involved in boosting packaging innovation to reduce the impact of packaging and packaging waste across our sector and increase the uptake of recycled plastic content and recycling across the packaging we use.

Current revision of packaging legislation

The PPWD is currently under review and will be replaced by a Regulation, with the intention to expand its scope to include the reduction of packaging over its entire lifecycle, improvement in design for reuse and recycling and driving the uptake of recycled content.

A.I.S.E. is fully aligned with these objectives and supports the ambition to safeguard the single market for packaging and harmonise waste sorting labelling. We nevertheless see certain obstacles to achieving these objectives:

Availability of sufficient quality and quantities of recycled material to allow us to meet the minimum recycled content targets in plastic packaging. The legislation needs to provide industry with the means to meet this ambition through effective collection, sorting and recycling and we advise the proposal include clear recognition of chemical recycling and pre-consumer recycled material.
Recycled content of sufficient quality and functionality for coated, fibre-based packaging. The proposed targets would undermine the move towards minimisation and we are calling for the recycled content targets to apply only to plastic.
A minimisation approach for empty space in order to reduce excessive packaging. We ask for a single metric for empty space to be replaced by requirement minimising a packaging transport and grouped packaging, based on the performance criteria. Packaging first and foremost must be able to fulfil its main functionalities.
An inclusive approach to reuse and refill which acknowledges the wide variety of models that already exist including in-store refill, refill at home and dilute at home. As refills and reuse are a relatively recent innovation, it is important that the overall footprint of the product is considered, not alone the packaging waste. See A.I.S.E. position below.