Rob Langford – CEO of The Packaging Forum
The Packaging Forum has been working more than 20 years to develop sustainable solutions for both maximum material recovery and waste minimisation – from promoting and investing in reuse and refillable solutions, to facilitating recovery and recycling schemes for glass, soft plastic, food and beverage cartons and, most recently, caps and lids.
“The Forum continues to work closely with its members and stakeholder partners to ensure the programmes are workable, sustainable and support New Zealand’s recycling and circular economy, and welcomes new members keen to become part of the network,” says Rob Langford, CEO of The packaging Forum.
He says that for a true circular economy, the entire process needs to be sustainable and ultimately be focused on keeping products in circulation, which reduces waste and environmental impact; and having a well-supported recovery network that streams collected material efficiently and effectively is key.
“By increasing the life cycle of a product, be it a plastic bag or food and beverage carton, which will then have a second life as a fence post or sustainable building supplies – we are not only reducing waste we are supporting a new economy,” says Langford.
“At the Forum we are always looking at how we can reduce the amount of good recyclable materials that are going to landfill. Our most recent project launched in September, the Caps and Lids Recycling Scheme is an industry-funded programme designed to ensure as many metal and plastic caps and lids as possible are diverted from landfill, and instead placed back in the recycling and circular economy.
“The caps and lids collected across the network will be separated and processed, and ultimately recycled into new products – for example, the processed plastic lids will become products such as wheelie bins and cable covers in Australia via our recycling partner; the metal lids will be sent to metal recyclers in New Zealand for processing and recycling – our long term plan is that all our collected lids and caps will be recycled right here in New Zealand.”
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