New Directives on Chain of Custody Published

The FTSE100 sustainable packaging leader has today announced the appointment of Wouter van Tol as Head of Sustainability and Government Affairs. Reporting to Greg Dawson, Director of Corporate Affairs, van Tol will spearhead sustainability and public affairs across the DS Smith Group including its packaging, paper and recycling divisions. Wouter van Tol joins DS Smith after three years as Global Head of Corporate Responsibility at food packaging company Huhtamaki, where he was responsible for developing and delivering its Packaging for Good sustainability strategy. An industry heavyweight with over two decades of experience, van Tol previously held senior positions in Procter & Gamble, Nestlé and Samsung.

The National Recycling Coalition defines recycling as “A series of activities by which material that has reached the end of its current use is processed into material utilized in the production of new products.” The goal of paper recycling, then, is to supply paper and paper packaging manufacturers with enough mill-quality recovered fiber to meet their needs in making new products. And the paper industry, along with our partners in the states, has a very good record of success in doing that. The U.S. paper recovery rate in 2014 was 65.4 percent – up from 63.5 percent in 2013. In all, more than 50 million tons of paper and paper packaging was recovered for recycling last year. AF&PA has a goal to exceed 70 percent paper recovery for recycling by 2020. So how do we improve our performance so that we can grow paper recovery from 65.4 percent to 70 percent?

Interesting article from Image Reports about whether or not digital media is getting away with too much when it comes to the sustainability argument. While the environmental impact of print has been heavily scrutinized, the information technology industry has been given a much freer ride on this issue.