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Corrugated industry urges MPs to be positive about packaging
At the House of Commons on 30 November, representatives from all parts of the corrugated packaging industry met with Members of Parliament to put the case for packaging’s essential role in business and society as a whole.
A constant stream of MPs visited the lobby, organised by the Confederation of Paper Industries and the Sheet Plant Association. Dan Rogerson MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on packaging, made his positive views on the industry clear when he addressed the gathering; "It’s vital you stay in business" he said "and that you keep innovating, responding to the needs of your customers. As MPs, we all like exciting new ideas. We’ve got to keep reminding society of the importance of packaging and that it performs a range of functions. We also need to show that corrugated packaging is a sector of industry that takes a material that people have already used, and turns it back into an incredibly useful product. We need to get as many MPs as possible into corrugated factories to see the good work that’s going on."
Clive Bowers, Chairman of the CPI Corrugated Sector, replied on behalf of the industry with a briefing to MPs on the importance of corrugated packaging to the UK and provided them with a list of action points for the future including:
- Tackling food waste as a matter of urgency as its environmental impact is 10 times greater than that of packaging
- Ensuring the quality of recycled materials, which are vital for the manufacture of new boxes
- Putting in place energy policies to ensure economic and reliable supply for the long term
Clive noted that: "It is good to see that more and more politicians are beginning to recognise the role of packaging in underpinning consumer choice and, in particular, seeing corrugated as an environmentally sustainable form of packaging. We will be keeping up a flow of communication to MPs in 2011 so that they understand as fully as possible what needs to be done to keep our industry, and manufacturing as a whole, in a healthy state." |
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