Environmental Position - Packaging & Packaging Waste
Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (94/62/EC)
In December of 1994, the European Union issued the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste. This Directive aims to harmonise national measures in order to prevent or reduce the impact of packaging and packaging waste on the environment and to ensure the functioning of the Internal Market. It contains provisions on the prevention of packaging waste, on the re-use of packaging and on the recovery and recycling of packaging waste. Each Member State is obligated to adopt measures to meet the requirements set out by the Packaging Directive.
To meet the requirements of this legislation, manufacturers, importers, and distributors must either:
- Develop and implement their own take-back schemes for their product packaging; or
- Join non-profit associations, such as the Green Dot program, that are established to organise the collection, sorting, and recycling of used sales packaging. Green Dot is currently the standard take-back program in 21 European countries.
The Green Dot system is the only initiative that is attempting to provide overall coverage in the EU through one model that fulfills on behalf of obligated parties the requirement to collect and recover their packaging waste. By participating in the Green Dot program, manufacturers are released from the obligation of recovering their own packaging waste.
Buffalo Technology is committed to this scheme and is registering separately in the Green Dot program of each country to which we export, and are paying the required fees as determined by the license agreement.
