The Design Smart Material Guides are now available via the APC website*.  A comprehensive resource for those involved in the design, specification and procurement of packaging, the Guides provide a ‘checklist’ of sustainability considerations to keep in mind when designing and/or specifying packaging made from particular materials.

Intended to support packaging assessments against the SPG, the guides cover fibre packaging, rigid plastic packaging, flexible plastic packaging, aluminium containers, steel containers, glass containers, composite packaging formats, compostable plastic packaging, and packaging components/closures/labels.

*These guides are available for APC Signatories only, and access requires a login. You can request a password on the APC website.

The APC Member Services Team is committed to helping signatories develop and implement action plans that are aligned to their business, include clear targets and measurable actions and lead to improved environmental outcomes.  The APC will be holding Action Plan Development Workshops for new signatories (those without approved action plans) in late mid-October.

Attendees to these workshops will receive guidance and support from experts regarding how to develop action plans to ensure they are easier to implement and report against, and deliver measurable results.  Attendance is free for signatories.

Additional resources are planned for those wishing to revise their existing plans, however you are welcome to enrol in the current workshops, or register your interest for a revision-specific workshop.

To enrol for these workshops please contact Natalie Ryan.

Following a second year of reporting under the APC, the secretariat is pleased to inform signatories and other key stakeholders that there was an overall increase in the average scores awarded to signatories against all KPIs for the 2013 annual reporting.

Average scores remained consistent or improved across all KPIs. The APC is particularly pleased with improved performance under KPI 8 - Litter, and with the performance of signatories whose overall score was below 2 in 2012, with more than 87% of these receiving an improved score in 2013.

The APC will provide a more thorough review of this year’s reporting results by industry type, state, and business size; however we are keen to share an update with an Interim Summary to allow all signatories to benchmark their scores.

Access the summary on the APC website.

Following the release of our About APC Video, some of our signatories have embraced the opportunity to communicate their involvement with APC to their customers.

Mrs Mac's did a great blog post about packaging sustainability and posted the APC video on their Facebook page.

Sanitarium added the video to their website information about their commitment to sustainable packaging.

If you would like assistance in embedding the video on your site, or for ideas on how to promote your commitment to packaging sustainability contact comms@packagingcovenant.org.au.

Winners of the APC’s 2013 Business Clean-Up Day, Baiada and Sanitarium both donated the recycled plastic chair prizes they won to schools in NSW.  Baiada, who had 25 sites registered and 148 volunteers in total donated their chairs to Chifley Public School in Malabar, and Sanitarium, who collected over 40 general waste and 16 recycling bags, donated 3 junior free standing benches to Wyong Grove Public School.

Thanks again to Baiada and Sanitarium for your commitment to the APC and the product stewardship of packaging.

Last week, the APC organised and ran a site tour to the world-class VISY rPET recycling facility in Smithfield, Sydney.

The tour group included a range of APC councillors and signatories and was met at VISY by Michael Rochaix and Rob Dvorak, who gave a short presentation on the state of plastics recycling in Australia and the rest of the world, before leading a tour to show how the facility functioned. Based on the typical MRF layout, the plastics facility removes contaminants from the PET stream through a combination of trommels, magnets, ballistics separators, and Near Infrared Detectors (NIR), before treating, flaking and extruding PET pellets for reuse.

The tour group was able to watch many of these processes in action to gain an understanding of how the MRF worked and how different materials would be handled in the recycling process. The tour group welcomed this insight, with several individuals stating it would help inform their understanding of design for recovery.

The APC will be working with Visy and other recycling plants to run Design for Recovery and Recycling workshops later in 2013.

The City of Moonee Valley in conjunction with the Australian Packaging Covenant and the Department of Human Services recently implemented a Public Housing Estate Recycling Program at Wingate Housing Estate aiming to divert 1,000 tonnes from landfill within the next 5 years. The community engagement project distributed recycling infrastructure and education to 1500 residents who embraced the initiative and achieved a recovery rate of approximately 50 tonnes of recyclables within the first 6 months. Litter around the Estate has decreased and 3 project volunteers have gained full time employment.

The project has recently entered two awards The Banksia Award – Education Category and the Victorian Premier's Sustainability Awards - Community Category, finalists are announced in late August, early September respectively.

Find out more about the project

The National Litter Index (NLI) released this week shows that the occurrence of litter nationally is continuing an overall downward trend, with Victoria leading the way with an above-average 17% reduction by item on last year’s count.

The continuing decrease in litter is the result of collaborative actions between government, industry and community groups, such as the Australian Packaging Covenant, to address concerns about litter.

Read the full results on the Keep Australia Beautiful website.