No Packaging material has green advantage?

Jane Bickerstaffe who is the director of the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment (Incpen) spoke at the Biodegradable plastics in packaging applications conference yesterday and claimed that promoting one material over another encourages the public to focus on trivial issues.

“An environmentally-responsible pack is one that gets its contents from production to consumption with minimum use of materials and energy, generating minimum wastage of contents and used packaging,” annouced Jane Bickerstaffe who went on to state that It was of secondary importance whether the packaging was degradable or inert, derived from renewable or non-renewable resources, capable of being refilled or easy to recycle and that no packaging material or type of packaging has a monopoly of environmental virtues.

The Biodegradable plastics in packaging conference was organised by Pira, which is owned by Swiss additives giant Ciba Specialty Chemicals.