Conference report SVI Annual Conference 2024 “Requirements for the packaging of the future” PPWR continues to cause great uncertainty – AI can also be used in the packaging industry Olten, September 20, 2024. Packaging is undergoing unprecedented change. Packstoffe, Darreichungsformen und Regulative ändern sich stetig. The packaging industry is facing major challenges, including in relation to a regulatory tsunami originating in Switzerland and abroad. The focus is on the challenges of the circular economy, ecological materials and processes. What are the demands of politics, social and technological change and what are the challenges of digitalization and consumer behaviour? The sixth annual conference of the Swiss Packaging Institute SVI on September 17, 2024 in Olten provided answers for the entire breadth of the packaging industry at the industry’s annual meeting.
SVI Managing Director Andreas Zopfi and conference chair Dr. Karola Krell-Zbinden from Food Lex AG welcomed the participants.
“The new European Packaging Ordinance PPWR will also come to Switzerland, perhaps later, but definitely”, said Krell-Zbinden.
It is the task of Swiss legislators to copy EU law and adapt it slightly if necessary, as EU law does not apply directly in Switzerland, of course.
In Switzerland, responsibility for the packaging industry is largely derived from the law on commodities.
Two federal offices, the FOPH and the FOEN, are involved.
In general, however, waste management is regulated at cantonal level, which poses a problem for the industry when implementing a national collection system.
In addition, there are considerable regional differences in mentality when it comes to the collection and separation of waste by the population.
Dr. Jan Hendrik Kempkes, Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the German company Interzero Recycling Alliance GmbH, provided an initial assessment of the impact of the European PPWR on the Swiss packaging industry.
The Parliament is expected to hold a final vote on the draft before the new EU Parliament elections in June 2024 on November 13/14, 2024, with entry into force scheduled for January/February 2025.
As the PPWR is a regulation (and not a directive), it applies directly and does not have to be transposed into national law.
Kempkes sees the PPWR as a chaotic regulation due to countless legal acts and definitions.
You have to familiarize yourself very thoroughly, and there is also the threat of high fines for violations.
The distinction and self-classification between producer and manufacturer obligations is important for Swiss companies.
Producer obligations include, among other things: Conformity assessment procedures and technical documentation; requirements for substances in packaging; design for recycling (in stages starting in 2030, all packaging must be recyclable); minimum recycled content in plastic packaging from 2030; minimization of packaging from 2030; demonstrating health protection and product protection for reusable packaging; labelling of packaging throughout Europe using standardized pictograms; appointment of authorized representatives (mouthpiece to the authority based in the EU).
The producer obligations include: the classic extended producer responsibility as before; new producer register and new reporting obligations; appointment of authorized representatives in each country to which one delivers; ban on certain advertising claims on packaging; bans on certain packaging formats.
The first of three presentations on primary packaging was given by Dr. Martin Engelmann, Director General of the German IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen, who spoke about “New rules on the use of recyclate in food packaging”.
He first reported on the development and discussion during the drafting of the PPWR on the use of recyclate with regard to availability and safety concerns for human health. Europe is overly cautious when it comes to the use of recyclates, while this is handled more generously in the USA.
The question is whether there will be sufficient capacity by 2030 to achieve the minimum quota of 35% for the use of recyclates in food packaging for each plastic component in accordance with Article 7 of the PPWR?
There is investment in collection and recycling, but too little and it takes too long to build up this supply chain.
The quota for polyolefins (PP and PE) can only be achieved if recycling in Europe is increased fivefold by 2030, which is hardly possible.
This discriminatory regulation on the use of recycled plastics is to be challenged in the EU courts.
Although the PPWR allows certain “emergency routes”, this is all subject to a big question mark.
Engelmann also sees it as a mistake on the part of the EU to start with food packaging instead of uncritical non-food packaging when using recyclate.
In addition, Regulation 2022/1616 on materials and articles made from recycled plastic does not provide any Europe-wide legal and planning certainty.
Since July 11, 2023, only recyclates that have been produced using “suitable” recycling technology may be placed on the market, with exceptions for “novel” recycling technologies.
Both are very vague formulations.
“From unwanted plastic to raw material” reported Markus Tonner, Managing Director of InnoRecycling AG based in Eschlikon TG.
From his practical experience as a plastics disposal service provider, Tonner has a “sinking feeling” when looking to the future in view of the requirements.
In order for unwanted plastic to become a raw material, he sees six factors that must be fulfilled: sensitized consumers, an industry with clear goals, an optimized legal framework, sufficient demand from the market, technological feasibility and improved economic and ecological conditions.
According to a 2022 survey on the composition of the contents of a bin liner, there is a potential of around 180,000 tons of plastic per year in Switzerland.
But where does the industry stand today?
Despite some lighthouse projects for PET, HDPE, PS and PP, the design for recycling is currently still completely inadequate.
Although the Swiss Plastic Recyclers Association is aiming for an industrial recycling rate of 55% from 2025 and RecyPac wants to achieve a collection rate of 55% by 2030, it currently sees a lack of commitment to a genuine circular economy.
Politics and business in Switzerland are taking a wait-and-see approach, with the EU setting the pace.
In terms of the legal framework, it is still unclear how the disposal monopoly will continue.
Consumers want recycled packaging, but the offerings on retail shelves are still very thin on the ground.
The technology for fully automated sorting systems is well advanced and enables a high degree of purity for up to 18 types of packaging.
Tonner’s conclusion is sobering: “Plastic is primarily a popular fuel in the Swiss waste management industry today. There is still a lot to be done to finally turn fuel into a recyclable raw material.” Erich Jaquemar, Key Account Manager at Vetropack Austria GmbH, spoke about disposable versus reusable glass. In principle, glass is 100% recyclable and practically all consumers support recycling, but not everyone really recycles.
Vetropack Austria has looked into the requirements for the introduction of reusable systems and believes that the framework conditions in Austria are good.
In general, reusable glass can save up to 70% CO2 with sensible systems.
To promote waste avoidance, the Austrian government is forcing retailers to offer mandatory reusable containers for drinks: a general reusable quota of 25 percent is prescribed for beer, water, soft drinks, fruit juice and milk from 2025 and 30 percent from 2030.
Austria is therefore introducing a deposit system for PET bottles and cans from January 1, 2025 at 20 cents per bottle.
In practice, this is likely to mean that most beverage bottlers in Austria will have to fall back on standard containers.
To this end, there are working groups for various beverages (beer, water, AFG, wine) and container sizes.
In addition, the entire logistics relating to transportation, return machines and pool management must be adapted over the entire life cycle.
The new reusable bottles must be designed correctly so that they can be filled with different drinks, as must the crates.
There are also legal requirements for the minimum wall thicknesses for glass bottles as well as their own MW labeling, their own logo and their own crates (including split boxes).
Vetropack has launched a thermally toughened small bottle on the market, partly due to political requirements.
Winfried Mühling, General Manager of Pro Carton, headquartered in Zurich, spoke about the contribution of folding cartons to the transition to a circular economy.
He began by looking back to 2018, when the global initiative set ambitious targets under the heading “Pledge 2025”, which included, for example, the use of 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging.
However, the complexity was underestimated and since spring 2024, a number of global consumer goods companies such as Unilever, Pepsi and Colgate have had to revise their targets and issue public statements.
In some cases, the target has been postponed to 2030, which also seems unrealistic given the overall recycling rate of around 64.5% (2022).
The main obstacles are the complexity of flexible packaging, a lack of incentives for collection and a lack of infrastructure.
The most recent recycling rate for plastic packaging was 11.7% (2022) and could reach a maximum of 17% by 2025.
However, the industry’s target was 26%.
The use of virgin plastic is also not really decreasing and the reduction target is being missed by a wide margin, Mühling noted.
Nevertheless, he does not see the Pledge 2025 as a failure, as it has raised awareness of the problem.
In the cardboard sector, the circular economy has been practised for decades, with a recycling rate of 82% in the EU and even 85% in Switzerland and Germany.
Switzerland is a prime example of the separate collection of paper and cardboard fractions and consumers trust the collection. Cardboard packaging is possible in many formats and is also increasingly penetrating the food sector, Mühling concluded.
Dr. Alan Ettlin, COO, and Daniel Höfliger, Head of Industry/Energy at BBV Software Services AG, based in Lucerne, presented the possibilities and practical examples of generative AI in the industrial environment.
They reported on practical experience and the technical basis of how artificial intelligence (AI) works in an industrial environment.
“Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that is trained to generate content such as text, images, videos or music independently by learning from large amounts of data and recognizing patterns.” Language models are “trained” through supervised learning to repeatedly predict the next word or to indicate a probability for all known words.
According to the Swiss AI Impact Report 2024, around 72% of Swiss companies use generative AI.
Only 30 percent have defined AI guidelines, which the speakers see as a risk for company data.
In general, the technology is suitable for knowledge management with AI agents.
The company offers preconfigured and customized AI agents to support employees and the intuitive combined use of internal and external company data.
AI agents can be understood as specialized assistants that specifically support employees in their role in completing their tasks.
They use artificial intelligence to support people with tasks or to complete tasks autonomously. Antonios Smyrnaios from the German company eology GmbH reported on AI-based text creation in e-commerce and posed the question of whether this could be beneficial for the B2B packaging industry.
He first gave an overview of current e-commerce trends and generative AI in B2B e-commerce.
For the packaging industry, AI-supported upselling and cross-selling methods, a focus on sustainability and personalized marketing and products are likely to be at the forefront.
How you are found by search engines depends heavily on search engine optimized texts (SEO) on the websites of online stores.
AI can be used here: 64% of companies believe that they can increase their productivity thanks to AI, 59% of companies believe that they can save costs and 42% of companies believe that they can optimize processes using AI.
When it comes to text creation, ChatGPT is currently in the spotlight.
In an application test to create content for the task “Transactional and informational category text about the product category folding cartons”, GPT-4.0 did not manage to implement all instructions correctly.
Human texts are still much closer to the product range and can name specific product recommendations.
The GPT-4.0 text only uses the information provided by the keywords and cannot provide any advice.
Conclusion: Keyword optimization and SEO readability are worse than with a human text.
As a result, the ranking potential of AI texts without manual review is lower than that of texts written by SEO editors.
AI texts usually have a solid basic structure and are usable in terms of content and language. However, they lack uniqueness; similar texts can be found in abundance online.
Even with access to internet research, the AI sometimes fails with texts that are intended to be very advisory.
The same applies to store texts that should be very strongly focused on the product range.
Smyrnaio’s conclusion was: “At the end of the day, an AI tool is just a tool. The quality of the work depends on how you use it. In the hands of a person who knows what AI can and cannot (yet) do, it also shows its greatest potential. AI is therefore a support and creates a solid foundation on which humans can create qualitative output.”