On May 29, the Pet Sustainability Coalition (PSC) launched its Packaging Legislation Tracker, a new tool for the pet food industry designed to provide an accessible, responsive overview of the latest packaging requirements that could impact business decisions, all organized by region for quick and relevant information.
The Packaging Legislation Tracker offers easy access to essential regulation details, insight into how these regulation may affect your pet food operations and guidance on where to find additional information, said Ali Boden, senior packaging manager with PSC.
"This tool is provides a comprehensive list of packaging-related regulations for the pet industry and can help you piece together how it could apply to your pet business and the type of packaging you work with," she added. "This streamlined approach means you spend less time researching and more time implementing strategic changes that help you reduce costs, stay ahead of compliance needs and identify opportunities for sustainable growth."
Currently, the tracker includes packaging-related regulations and policies affecting the pet industry in four key regions: the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU). A future expansion into coverage of non-EU countries, Australia and New Zealand is planned. Each region can be sorted and filtered based on need.
Information updated biannually
The coverage represents PSC’s thorough research, providing an overview of significant bills, directives, policies and regulations, along with resources for further exploration, said Boden.
"Keep in mind that in this ever-changing landscape, there could be some outdated information, but at least there are resources to find further information," she explained. "We will be updating this on a biannual basis. So mid-April was the last update, and we intend on doing another big update in mid-October."
Each region has its own tab on the tracker, and it has a full list of the types of legislation applicable in those regions, broken out by state, province or country. It can be further broken down by governing body type.
Within each row, users can learn when the last update was, where the state of enactment is, the name of the bill or act, the description/purpose, current status, when it was passed, when it would be enforced, and more. Boden also explained there is a breakdown of the implications on how how these bills could be impacting the pet industry.
"There is an entire section regarding the type of business likely impacted by the legislation and broken out within the pet supply chain," she noted.
There are a lot of bills and regulations targeting packaging in the pet industry space. "This is a lot of information," said Boden. "We have over 100 pieces of regulation across all four regions represented here. It can be very overwhelming, so I'm excited to share this tool in hopes it will help clarify some of this information for the pet industry."
