Why are we campaigning about this?

The GetReal team are a bunch of passionate Kiwis who care about both good design and waste reduction.

There are some obvious issues with the way we handle packaging recovery now. The systems we have work on one level but we could do so much better. So what needs to change?

1. Some recycling systems produce low quality products that may not be suitable for reprocessing into new products with recycled content. Your recycling is in great condition when it goes out on the kerb, we need recycling systems that keep it that way. 
2. Sometimes the best recycling methods for the environment, don't get taken advantage of. Lots of our glass bottles are crushed and used as gravel now. It doesn't make much sense whan wou know that 350kg of CO2 is saved for every tonne of glass bottles going to be remelted into new bottles, while crushing glass to use instead of gravel uses 2 kg a tonne. It's abig difference.
3. The credit crunch and the associated economic downturn have led to an increase in net recycling costs. At the moment a lot of the cost is paid by ratepayers via the local council. We need to come up with a fairer way of paying for recycling services.
   Including the cost of handling in the price of the product is a standard product stewardship tool. This creates an incentive for the producer to make packaging that is easy and cost effective to recycle.
4. It can be hard for consumers to tell the difference between the real environmentally friendly packaging and the greenwashed ones. Lots of wild claims get made by advertisers and who knows whether they are true. We need good information to be able to make good decisions.
5. The best businesses are already focused on building sustainability into their supply chains. We need to find ways to support these business. The status quo gives an unfair advantage to people who push costs out into the environment instead of taking responsibility for finding better solutions. 

Product stewardship is an effective tool that can bring benefits to all the people in the supply chain. It needs strong leadership to work. We think our government should be providing some.

Help us get packaging back on the priority product list. Join up now.