Food packaging in South Africa: reducing, re-using and recycling.

Abstract

Food packaging is essential for maintaining food quality, freshness and integrity. It also allows for convenient transport, storage and sale in discrete quantities. Finally, it can be used as a means of product differentiation, marketing and information dissemination. Increased consumption and the lack of a recycling culture in South Africa have resulted in an ever-increasing volume of used packaging reaching landfill sites. This has led in one case to government regulation of an industry, and in other cases to the establishment of voluntary industry recycling initiatives. The effectiveness of the industry-led initiatives in stimulating recycling, and the apparent failure of the regulations, seem to suggest that voluntary initiatives undertaken by industry are likely to be more successful than regulation in achieving recycling targets. However, given the need to reduce packaging production as well as to recycle, and given that industry is unlikely to reduce production voluntarily; there is a need for regulation, or at least mutually-agreed targets for reduction, in addition to voluntary recycling initiatives.