Thursday may 24th, 2012 marks the beginning of a new era in global manufacturing and distribution, where the environmental aspects of packaging throughout the supply and recycle chain will already be taken into account in the packaging design process. At 14.20 hrs seoul time on that day, the final texts of the iso world standards on packaging and the environment were released for translation and publication in october later this year.
The decision was taken unanimously and with great enthousiasm in the plenary meeting of iso committee tc122sc4 packaging and environment, which took place at the coex conference centre in the south korean capital seoul. Previous meetings were held in atlanta, tokyo, beijing and stockholm where the work started in 2009. The standards address optimization of the packaging system, reuse, material recycling, energy recovery and composting, as well as the way these aspects of each package are related to each other before and after its use.
Every responsible retailer, manufacturer and packaging supplier can implement the standards in their management system and thereby take responsibility for their specific part in the sustainable innovation of packages, packaged products, retail and recycling. Background information not for publication the new standards will be available by october 2012 via the national standardisation institutes which together constitute the worldwide international standardization organisation iso.
For more information please contact michaël nieuwesteeg, via m.nieuwesteeg@nvc.nl or 310182512411. This press release and a photo of the plenary meeting of iso committee tc122sc4 packaging and environment can also be downloaded from our website.
