On 22 April climate advocates in Slovenia organised a round-table to discuss the importance of recycling plastic packaging for the environment. The event brought together stakeholder organisations involved in the packaging industry in Slovenia with climate change experts and particularly focused on issues relating to the excessive use of plastic carrier bags.

The event was organised by climate advocates Elizabeta  Biluš, Manja Vidic, Gregor Draksler, Lučka Kavkler and Špela Kotar as part of their "reduce, re-use, recycle” project.

Plastic bags are a symbol of modern consumer society and when we are done using them, we should use suitable container for packaging, which would allow their recycling. The recycling of plastic packaging waste reduces the burden on the environment, since the recycling of 1 kg of plastic waste saves 1.5 kg of CO2 emissions, 2 kg of oil and energy. It is therefore important that we collect plastic packages - including carrier bags – separately, and thus enable their processing and recycling.

The climate advocate group believes that it is possible to increase the amount of plastic waste that can be recycled by raising awareness among consumers about the appropriate use of plastic carrier bags. By using the "reduce, re-use, recycle" principle it is possible to encourage the separate collection of plastic packaging.

Snippets from the roundtable include:

Mike Jefferson, Representative of British company Valpak: "Recycling of plastic packaging is very important, because it helps saving natural sources, therefore, oil. Also plastic carrier bags can be recycled and these recycled materials used for making new products.”

Mag. Barbara Tišler, Representative of Slovenian company for the management of packaging waste Slopak pointed out, that the amount of packaging waste, which is in Slopak collected separately, is increasing by each year. “In 2004 Slovenia separately collected around 50.000 tones of packaging waste, which represents 50 kg of recycled packaging waste per resident. Out of this, 8.6 kg of plastic packaging per resident, or 43% of all plastic packaging comes on the Slovenian market. We are noticing that the market of products from recycled plastic packaging in Slovenia is not yet adequately developed. Plastic shopping bags are a very good example of a product, where recycled plastic packaging can be integrated and as such be a multifaceted recycling promoter.
 
Vida Ogorelc Wagner, Director of Umanotera Fundation, sees the advantage of recycling in saving of non-renewables, fossil raw materials, energy, landfill space and the symbolic importance of finalizing the material flows. "In reducing C02 emissions, recycling has mainly a symbolic role, since transport clearly has the biggest impact on emissions."

Dr. Gregor Radonjič, Profesor of Technology at Economics and Business Faculty in Maribor said that recycling has an important role in solving the problem of plastic packaging waste. “In recent years of plastic package recycling we record a significant development of separating and processing technology. The quality of recycled materials is growing due to technological developments.”

"However it is necessary to realize, that recycling alone can not solve the problem of waste, so it is important to consider this processing as part of integrated waste packaging problem solving. Like with all other materials, also with plastic packaging waste, there are technological and economic limitations for recycling."

Srečo Bukovec, Representative of Slovenian retail chain Mercator argued that the group is making an afford to control and reduce impact of its activities and the impact of their products on pollution. "We actively participate in the legislation process and the schemes establishment for the managing the waste packaging and organising efficient internal processes for dealing with them. The biggest environmental impact is caused by great amounts of waste packaging, and therefore we are very interested in cost-effective management of the process, including recycling of the collected packaging."

The participants agreed that voluntary measures among the retailers are needed for the reduction of waste packaging and recognised the need for this type of coordination in order to avoid hard legislative measures.