PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2010

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Landhausstr. 4 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 [email protected] EDITORIAL Doris Fischer f [email protected] Ruari McCallion Tony O´Neill Ilona Trotter Wolfgang von Schroeter Anthony Withers MEDIA CONSULTANTS Ute Andrä [email protected] Miriam Kiesler [email protected] phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 France, Italy, Spain, UK Elisabeth Maria Köpke phone: +49(0)6201-878925 fax: +49(0)6201-878926 [email protected] LAYOUT AND PREPRESS EXPRIM Kommunikationsdesign www.exprim.de READER SERVICES Kay Krüger [email protected] PRINT WDW Druck GmbH Gustav-Throm-Straße 1 69181 Leimen-St.Ilgen Germany WWW www.petpla.net | w ww.pet-point.net PETplanet insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ subscription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trade marks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 06/10 www.petpla.net EDITORIAL dear readers, Time for PET packaging to take centre stage? In the 25 years or so that PET packaging has been around, its market reputation does not appear to have kept pace with present day concerns. Today we are all singing from the same environmental and sustainability hymn sheet. Is the PET industry lagging behind public opinion? Perhaps the time has come to face up to a new reality. Let’s put emotions and spin on one side for a moment and look at research findings – some packaging materials seem to be treated more kindly than others. Plastics in particular have come in for severe criticism on environmental grounds. How valid are these criticisms? Is there a danger that these recent studies could be misleading the general public? Let´s be clear: PET bottles use less than 70% of the energy com- pared to glass packaging and there is still room for significant improve- ments! And this does not even take into account the costs of transpor- tation and manufacture. Refillable and returnable containers generate pollution. It can neither be sensible nor sustainable to be trucking around empty glass bottles that are considerably bigger and heavier than their PET counterparts. And what about the 60°C temperature and the 5l of caustic water the bottle-washer uses to clean these containers? Who is counting the cost in ground water pollution? From the start, PET pack- aging has always been more favourable in terms of container volume/ package weight and this advantage has only increased with the many light-weighting initiatives that have been or are being implemented. But let´s not forget: PET packaging is appreciated by the consumer – combining convenience and economy and this has been a powerful driver of growth.It is sad to state that we humans tend to be rather lazy about the sheer convenience of using PET packaging. We watch films like “Plastics Planet”, and it dawns on us that we need to have a mecha- nism in place to collect PET packaging. The deposit system we use in Germany is highly effective when environmental awareness and waste collecting systems are high on the agenda (and at times exaggerated for reasons of political correctness or spin). The deposit system should work even better in countries less motivated to recycle packaging materials. At the end of the day however, the onus must lie with the consumer to take responsibility. Better a voluntary option than a mandatory regulation. And let’s focus on the facts rather than emotion or propaganda – however persuasive. The PET industry itself can help raise consumer awareness of the issues. Let’s put aside mere considerations of energy and raw material costs and focus instead on how we can improve sustainability. We must tackle the emotional issues head-on, responding to the undeserved criti- cism which leads to the public perception that “plastics are bad”. It’s time for all of us in the plastics industry to put PET where it belongs - centre stage and under the spotlights. Professor Dr.-Ing- Michael Koch