“How can packaging become sustainable when end of life treatment is externalized to municipalities?” This was a tweet I sent out during a session on solid waste handling at the recent Sustainable Packaging Coalition spring conference in Seattle, Washington. Industry, local governments, environmental organizations, educators and citizens invest a great deal of effort and money to improve recycling rates and access to recycling services across the United States. My own organization, GreenBlue, is dedicated to sustainable materials management (SMM), which focuses on using materials wisely, eliminating toxicity, and recovering more value from the material waste stream. Yet, the solutions to comprehensive sustainable material management remain elusive, here and globally.
