Dutch Packaging Design

Ian Lifshitz (sustainability director for the Americas for Asia Pulp & Paper Group) wrote an interesting article at Food and Beverage Packaging on trends in sustainable food packaging. The article explains five contemporary trends: traceability, food waste reduction, labeling, reusable packaging and finally responsibly grown.
Read more here.

Until recently, direct bottle printing was really only an option for glass bottles. But that’s changing. Today, there are a number of options for direct printing bottles, both glass and plastic. Yet another step forward in sustainable packaging design techniques.

Read more on the next wave of bottle and container decorating here.

Have we given up on changing consumer behavior around package material recycling? Or, are there tools that we can use to ‘move the needle forward.’ Earth911 thinks change is possible.

Read more at Packaging World

At Dutch website Groene Offerte you’ll find loads of interesting packaging design related articles, opinions and other stuff (all in Dutch). Especially the serie ‘Food for Thought’ gives entertaining and remarkable examples of packaging design in all its aspects, good or bad.
Groene Offerte is established for the complete design industry. The site is set up to grow: more and more contacts, knowledge and new insights. In this way Groene Offerte wants to help and encourage the design industry with their key role of this industry in the sustainable development of society and economy.

Food for Thought at Groene Offerte (all in Dutch).

”The primary role of packaging is protection, whether that be primary packaging to reduce oxidation, moisture change or insect/microbial access or transportation packaging to reduce crushing or other damage in distribution. It is more than coincidental that packaging usage per person is higher in the developed world and food availability is much greater. The benefits of (diverse) packaging are obvious to us but less so in many developing countries. Both use and quality of packaging is important to reduce food loss and impact sales.”

Read more on packaging design and food loss at Packaging Digest.

Already back in 2007, Anke Weiss, a Dutch modern designer who uses recycled materials, has designed a series of beautiful lights made from recycled food and drink packaging. Weiss takes – for instance – juice cartons that have been emptied of their contents and pokes holes in them, through which light will shine after the piece is completed. Recycling to the max that is.
More on this project and Anke Weiss’ work here, here and here.

On January 1st, 2013, taxes on packaging in The Netherlands will possibly be abolished. Owing to an agreement between Dutch State Secretary Joop Atsma (Infrastructure and Environment) and the business world, manufacturers, importers and sellers of packaged products will be responsible for the costs of collection and recycling of plastic packaging over the next ten years.

Read the complete article (in Dutch).

Students from Design Skolen Kolding, Denmark, made videos for the UNICEF Innovation – Reuse of Packaging Challenge – over a period of three weeks in January 2011. They are all works in progress. More videos at their YouTube UNICEF Innovation Channel.