A.M. Beeksma
Retourverpakkingen; inventarisatie van gebruiksvoorwaarden en bestaande
systemen.
Literature survey,
Report 93.3.LT.4114, Transport Technology, Logistic Engineering.
As result of recent governmental regulations and a common increasing
conscience of environmental problems, companies are forced to reduce their
packaging waste. One possibility for waste reduction is the use of returnable
packagings. The use of returnable packagings brings on important changes in
company logistics and the development of the packagings.
In this report we try to make a survey of the present knowledge of
returnable packagings. Therefore some 100 recent articles and reports
on this subject are surveyed; additional information supplied by several
companies is included in the survey.
During the investigation most of the information appeared to belong to one of
the three following apects of returnable packagings:
re-usable packagings in comparison with non re-usable packagings;
government regulations in several countries,
and
the logistic and technical construction of reverse-systems.
A comparison of re-usable and non re-usable packagings can be made on
account of ecological or economical considerations. The ecological
performance of a packaging can be measured by determining the total
environmental impact during the life-cycle of the packaging. If the
results of these so called Life Cycle Analyses are not clearly in favour
of the re-usable packaging, mostly the non re-usable packagings will be
preferred, while they are usually cheaper. The costs of re-usable
packagings highly depend on the logistic performance of the reverse
system.
For Dutch companies three laws/regulations are important: The Dutch
"Convenant Verpakkingen", The German "Verpackungsverordnung" and the
regulations of the European Community. As result of the Dutch regulations
many developments have already taken place. lnternationally most of the
developments have taken place in Germany. Therefore most of the
information of this report comes from German sources.
In spite of the fact that reverse systems are very specific for a company
and a product, in Germany general methods are being developed for the
introduction of reverse systems in companies. Besides that the choice in
companies that deal with returnable packagings is growing fast these days.
Most developments take place in the field of 'transportation packagings'
(such as pallets and containers), because for those kind of packagings the
necessary standardisation is relatively easy to accomplish.
The main conclusion of this report is that many developments are taking
place presently, but at this moment there is still a lack of profound
information (especially in the field of logistics). We expect that in a
few years much more information will be availabie, especially concerning
the logistical aspects of reverse systems.
Reports on Logistic Engineering (in Dutch)
Modified: 2000.06.12;
logistics@3mE.tudelft.nl
, TU Delft
/ 3mE
/ TT
/ LT.