LAST WORD
The last WORD
Whose responsibility? Dick Searle examines the notion of extended producer responsibility in the packaging sector
Since the advent of PRN's, WEE, PCR's and so forth, the world of recycling has always provided a ready spawning ground for new acronyms.
T
he great thing about an acronym is that it implies and assumes a familiar and
proven body of know-how, method and science. Experienced folk, however, will be alert to the presence of a not-so-subtle agenda trying to get legitimacy. How many of us, for example, I
wonder are familiar with the proliferating notions of EPR? A Google search reveals the presence of 'scholarly articles' on the subject. EPR - Extended Producer Responsibility - must therefore already be gaining ground as part of our everyday currency. If EPR is trying to take centre stage I am glad, since the only logical meaning of the phrase is one that now closes the loop on the behaviour and responsibility of the consumer. Why the consumer - consumer
Dick Searle is chief executive of the Packaging Federation.
behaviour and consumer responsibility - was omitted from the picture for so long is a mystery, until one considers the relationship of politicians and law-makers to consumers and consumption. What vote-seeking politician, for example, has ever managed to get elected on promises of less? Less consumption? Less growth? The truth is that the engine is always primed for an upward trajectory. It's the model we have clung to for some time now - and the system is now seriously overheating. Meantime the packaging
sector - which is not product, but merely the delivery system for the same - regularly and unfairly takes the rap. These delivery systems of ours, especially once used, are an inconvenient reminder to all about the realpolitik of this situation - consumption. As we know, packaging is the very least of our problems. Unlimited consumption, population growth, political systems in freefall, limited resources, human and social behaviours (including litter) – these are real problems that threaten to overwhelm the system but require, more than ever, mature and balanced reasoning and social leadership. Our UK industrialists and
manufacturers, for example, could do worse than to embrace the open, questioning and innovative dynamic of the environmental movement. Environmentalists meanwhile have a key role to play in helping consumers and politicians in working through their wants and needs and versions of extended responsibility. There is hope in this picture.
Great environmental solutions have always been provided by great manufacturing. Great manufacturing is disciplined to give customers and society the goods and services they want and need at optimum cost. Our policy and strategy should have the two working together as closely and profitably as possible. So, whose responsibility? It is a
shared activity. The needs, actions, outcomes and benefits following from it are all mutual.
PackagingGazette.co.uk | Packaging Gazette | 49
Dick Searle has spent the 44 years of his working life in the packaging industry. For over 30 years, before a brief retirement from the industry, he had been CEO of a number of packaging groups. His career has covered most of the material sectors of the industry and he has experience of both large and small companies. He was one of the founding directors of The Packaging Federation and has been chairman of both UK and European trade associations. Dick is a passionate believer in the industry and the contribution that it has made to the UK economy – both in terms of its products and as a major manufacturing industry.
For more information, visit
www.packaging
fedn.co.uk.
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