“The change needed is particularly visible at the end of our products’ life. We have to move away from landfill and incineration and towards recycling. We have an enormous effect on products actually being recyclable because the design has a say in this.”
Recycling begins with the design
Feeding products back into the circular economy requires them to be recyclable. For recycling to be a success, in many cases we have to rethink the design of our products. “Design for recycling” is our approach and the key to this much-needed change. Several years ago, we committed to making the design of our plastic packaging recycling friendly. In 2018, we signed the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. Signing this signaled the start of our recyclable packaging offensive and set a specific goal for Greiner Packaging that serves as a model for all areas of the company: Products must be developed in a way that ensures that can be fed back into the circular economy and that they are more sustainable in the future than they were in the past.
Our goal
We want to be a fully circular business by 2030.
Our targets
100%
By 2025, packaging at Greiner Packaging should be
0t
Not to send any more waste to landfill, in Europe by 2025 and globally by 2030.
By 2020
Until 2020, we designed EcoDesign-Guidelines that establish a framework for our product design.
Our performance
34%
Over one third of Greiner Packaging packaging is recyclable according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s definition of Global Commitment.
2,212t
2,212 tonnes of our total waste (hazardous and non-hazardous waste) were sent to landfill in 2020.
2020
At Greiner Packaging, we developed Design-Guidelines in 2020 that serve as a benchmark for developing and refining products.