In the US, California’s landmark SB 54 EPR law is facing legal scrutiny from environmental NGOs, who argue it undermines the law’s initial recycling and plastic reduction goals.  Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Californians Against Waste will challenge the law in court, focusing on whether CalRecycle — the state agency responsible for administering and implementing SB 54 — acted beyond its mandate by adopting regulations that conflict with the law’s legal obligation. “The biggest problem is that the regulations create broad pathways for certain types of plastic packaging to avoid the law’s reduction and recycling requirements altogether,” Nick Lapis, director of advocacy at Californians Against Waste, tells Packaging Insights.

ePac Flexible Packaging has announced the launch of ePacConnect. ePacConnect leverages the power of digital printing to create serialized, trackable packaging, and new ways for brands to engage consumers, gain market insights and protect their brand. ePac will offer all its customers an entry-level no-cost solution, ideal for small and medium-sized brands, as well as a fee-based solution for customers with broader requirements. ePacConnect will be piloted in Q4 2020 in the US and Europe, with a full roll-out to all ePac locations planned in early 2021. All customer orders received by ePac will include smart, serialized secure QR codes on every package or the brand can opt-out and no codes will be printed. By serializing each package it is automatically digitally enabled, given a unique digital identity, and can be “activated” at any time to give brands flexibility for how and when the codes are used.

Retail giant, Amazon, recently delivered a welcome break from the political news media to report on their shift to paper packaging across a significant part of their North American operations. As detailed in a press release on June 20th, 2024, Amazon reported a transition of 95% of their box “filler” from plastic air pillows to a paper void fill solution. This multi-year transition has been enabled by significant investments in their fulfillment operations, the package design engineering teams and sourcing teams. Amazon's leadership in sustainable packaging sets an example for the industry, demonstrating how aligning packaging choices with broader business objectives and sustainability goals can lead to innovative solutions and operational efficiencies. At Pregis, we’re pleased to be an innovation partner with Amazon to support their mission to “Ensure that customers receive their items undamaged, while using as little packaging as possible to avoid waste and prioritizing recyclable materials.” We share in Amazon’s focus on protecting against damage, optimizing packaging material use and designing for circularity (in layman’s terms that means enabling recyclability at end of the products life, so it does not become landfill waste).