International project aims to take EU pack standards global

Stina Wallström of the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) is leading the project as co-secretary with Xu Ting of Cepi China.

She told Packaging News that the new ISO standards would be based on the European standards behind the EU’s Packaging & Packaging Waste Directive and existing guidelines in Asia.

Mature EU market
“In Europe it’s a mature market – we are used to a lot of our waste being recovered or recycled, and relatively little goes to landfull. But in other parts of the world that’s not the case,” she said.

“States, regions and increasingly big packaging buyers are imposing their own requirements. ISO standards are strong documents so if you can refer to one you have a strong case to say you’re doing the right thing,” she said.

Some of the world’s biggest brand owners, such as Colgate and Coca Cola, are backing the project alongside national and regional packaging organisations such as Europen, European glass organisation FEVE and the Green Dot organisation.

It will aim to establish standards in seven areas:

• requirements for use;
• source reduction;
• reuse;
• recycling;
• energy recovery;
• chemical recovery, and;
• organic recovery.

Wallström said that the project would complement the Global Packaging Project, being led by Tesco head of packaging Sonia Raja, which aims to set out standard measures for packaging sustainability. “The last thing we want to do is create standards that are in conflict with existing legislation,” she added.

‘Ambitious’ timeframe
Four stages of voting on the wording of the standards need to take place before they become full ISO standards.

Wallström described the timetable for their publication by 2012 as “ambitious” but said that last week’s meeting, where the first vote to set the project in motion had taken place, had been very encouraging.

“There are bound to be conflicts sooner or later in a project like this. But the meeting last week was good and so far I’m very happy,” she said.

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