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This year the SPC participated in PackExpo as an event partner, and several GreenBlue staff were on hand in the SPC booth to speak with visitors about the role of sustainability in packaging, the activities that the SPC engages in, and the tools and resources it and GreenBlue offers that support the implementation of sustainability activities. The event was a bit under attended, perhaps due to the big Hurricane Sandy that hit the east coast, but it was still eventful with lots of energy and buzz as usual.
Being listed as a “green” partner, one thing we noticed was the prevalence of the “PACK EXPO Green” logo and placards meant to identify vendors that offered sustainable solutions or alternatives. In principle the concept was good, yet in implementation this turned out to be little more than a self identification badge. Several SPC members and others stopped by the SPC booth to report that many of the exhibitors that displayed these placards were unaware of how or why they received the signage. On our own exploration walks around the enormous exhibition halls, we learned that simply being a supplier of light weight flexible packaging, using plant-based inks for printing, offering some level of recycled content, or offering “recyclable” packaging solutions was sufficient to gain the placard.
Another thing that struck us was the shear amount of waste generated at such an enormous industry trade show. For example, when I arrived the day before the opening day to set up our booth, I was a bit dismayed to find a completely barren booth–just cement flooring and the booth walls with a paperboard sign identifying the booth as reserved for the SPC. None of the items we had shipped or ordered had been delivered. At first I was annoyed to have arrived so early to set up and then I couldn’t do anything. Of course the staff were extremely helpful in sorting out the situation. Then, as I awaited delivery, I decided to make an inventory of the items being delivered by the various trades–flooring, electrical, network cabling, furniture, and audio/visual. As a good data man should, I built the inventory and chatted with the different folks about how the stuff got used and disposed of at the McCormick Center. To my dismay, each trade in turn reported that by trade show standards, PackExpo was small-to-medium sized, and that they did not have room or personnel to store and reuse any of the materials. Plus, it was easier and cheaper to start with new items to fit the booths. Easier and cheaper is not necessarily compatible with sustainable. But we will save that discussion for another day.
Here are the items that were intended for single use. Any guesses as to the environmental profile, say in terms of greenhouse gasses invested in this bill of materials? Consider also that the SPC booth was a relatively basic set-up of three tables, a few chairs, a large flat-screen monitor, a couple of laptops, and some project flyers. I will see if I can estimate the impact after the holidays.

Last month, I spoke at the 4^th annual Seminario y Exhibición Envase Sostenible, i.e., the Seminar and Exhibition on Sustainable Packaging, held in Bogotá, Colombia. I had the privilege of speaking about two recently released resources developed by the SPC: Guidelines for the Use of Recycled Content in Fiber Based Packaging and Design for Recovery Guidelines for Aluminum, Glass, and Steel. The latter is actually three separate resources GreenBlue and the SPC developed with grant funding provided by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to study the end-of-life management options for various packaging materials, formats, and applications.
Although some of my colleagues at GreenBlue spoke at the same event in past years, I really didn’t know what to expect. I’m pleased to share, however, that I was very impressed with the entire event. More than 20 local/regional companies exhibited sustainable packaging, materials, and services. In addition, the speakers presented in the TED conference format with a strong command of their topics and the stage to an audience of at least 150 very engaged attendees who enjoyed simultaneous translation of the presenters, who like myself, had to speak in English. Likewise, we English-speaking presenters enjoyed simultaneous translation of the Spanish presentations.  To say the least, the audio/visual technology rivaled any of the most sophisticated conference/events I’ve attended, including TED.
What’s more, the organizers, B2B Portales, a business-to-business web portal and media company serving the Latin American business community, organized an impressive technical agenda with speakers from across the packaging value chain and life cycle, even as the event seemed to have a very strong focus on end-of-life management. I was joined by fellow Americans Ron Gonen, Founder of RecycleBank and currently Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation, and Dr. Ramani Narayan, Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials. Ron gave two presentations, one highlighting various models for recycling packaging including consumer incentive based programs like RecycleBank and the other on how to build successful partnerships with brand owners to promote the recycling of containers. Likewise, Dr. Narayan spoke twice, first on the use of carbon content as a biological basis for more sustainable packaging and then on understanding international standards for the biodegradation and compostability of bioplastics.
There were two sessions that I found particularly interesting. One featured José Oscar Jiménez, Manager of the Plan of Inclusion for garbage collection in the capital district of Bogotá, who discussed among other things some of the unique challenges the city faces in improving packaging recycling. He discussed the differences between North American/European waste management systems that may contract with large and sophisticated waste management firms and Latin American waste management systems that typically rely on individual or family “waste pickers.” He noted, for example, that implementing an incentive based system like RecycleBank’s would be more complicated in a place like Bogotá because there would need to be a way to provide incentives to the waste pickers and not just consumers. Waste pickers rely almost entirely on collecting recyclable materials to generate revenue and support their families. Ensuring these folks who typically survive at the bottom of the economic pyramid continue to have a livelihood, while creatively improving waste management systems, is a paramount consideration in Latin America.
A session on the collection of life cycle inventory (LCI) data based on LCA guidelines recently released by the United Nations Environment Program was a testament to the sophistication of the attendees and how far packaging sustainability has already progressed in Colombia. Dr. Nydia Suppen Reymaga, Director General of the Center for Life Cycle Assessment and Sustainable Design in Mexico, noted that Colombian companies often struggle to understand environmental impacts when the only available unit process datasets are US or European. She stressed the need for the development of local (country-based) datasets to make product and process assessments more accurate, credible, and meaningful. Interestingly, she pointed to various organizations that are working to develop robust LCI datasets in various part of the world and noted two that she saw as leaders in the US, Walmart and the SPC—a nice and unexpected shout out from the stage.