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Will voluntary guidelines for packaging source reduction be enough?

Many municipalities throughout the U.S. have developed voluntary collection and recycling programs, such as curb side collection and collection centres (e.g., municipal, churches, clubs, etc.).

Wal-Mart has established its packaging scorecard program for its vendors. Many corporations have self-imposed company guidelines to reduce the total amount of packaging materials used. All of these programs are designed to somehow reduce the total amount of packaging materials used. The basic question is, are these voluntary programs sufficient?

As the 2008 presidential election approaches, there are a growing number of people in the packaging community who believe that some type of mandated federal collection and recycling program may be implemented depending on who becomes the next president. It is difficult to predict how this could play out, but we thought it would be interesting to provide an example of how a mandatory program works.

Perhaps the most developed packaging collection and recycling program in the world is the Duales System Deutschland (DSD) in Germany. It was established in 1991 to provide a system of collection for metal, plastics, beverage cartons, and flexible packaging. The DSD worked with local partners (private waste collection companies and numerous municipalities) in each Land (State) in Germany to establish the Yellow Bin and Bag Kerb-side collection. This system is funded by a licensing fee paid for by consumer product companies on each individual package that is sold at retail in Germany. The German government established the DSD and developed the entire infrastructure. It then sold the DSD to the private equity firm KKR. The DSD is quite successful and will generate licensing revenue of about $1.8 billion U.S. in 2007. In addition, the sorted materials have a significant value when sold back to processors.

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