CONAI 2008 BALANCE: MORE RECYCLING WITH LESS PACKAGING

Date:2009-5-27 10:23:00

CONAI, Italy’s National Packaging Consortium, presents an ambivalent situation in its 2008 balance. While the overall steel, paper, wood, plastic and glass recovery results are positive, and reach 68,4% of the packaging introduced in the consumption cycle- exceeding the law target by 8 points, the situation seems to be a negative one for the materials obtained through recycling.

The amount of recycled materials has increased despite consumption reduction, which has led to a 2.8% decrease in the packaging introduced on the market. 7.224.000 tons of package waste have been recycled (59.3%) out of a total amount of 12.189.000 which entered the consumption cycle.

The paper recycle chain shows particularly positive results: 75.3% of the overall amount introduced in the consumption cycle is recycled, with a recycle rate increase of 4.8% with respect to the previous year; as regards steel and wood, the recycle rate amounts to 68.9% and respectively 52.5%, against the 35% rate established by the law.

Apart from the positive overall results, new challenges are expected in the immediate future, due to the issues related to the secondary raw material market crisis. In fact, at the end of the year, the consortium was obliged to increase the environmental contribution for wood and plastic packaging.