26 WESTERN PALLET
pretty good position where the economy will be strong,” he said, suggesting that 2025 might be when things improve.”You're going to see a little bit of a challenge over the next year, nothing terrible, followed by some pretty good times going forward.”
PDS and Sustainable Design
In the following session, How to Reduce Packaging Waste and Expand Reuse Through Smart Pallet Design, Kristen DeLack, PE of NWPCA talked about the importance of pallet and unit load design in improving sustainability and decreasing cost.
“So, first off, it all comes from you guys, the associations that are involved. You guys have an understanding of your business needs, strengths, weaknesses, desires, and directions that you want to go, and you feed that back to us in a very direct manner. ”
“We can take all of that information from you and produce big ideas and combine that with our know-how and experience, and especially our ability to carry large projects into the future… We have the consistency of regular staff to do that. “
She listed NWPCA’s extensive base of partners, including the Forest Products Lab, Softwood Export Council, USDA and Virginia Tech. “Anything they dream up, we can test (at Virginia Tech),” she said. “We need folks to take a look at what we're doing in an independent fashion.”
Commenting on the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for wood pallets, one of the biggest takeaways for DeLack, that the EPD is based on just one cycle, yet most pallets can be reused many times, repaired or remanufactured. If the reuse component were incorporated into the analysis, the sustainability story would be even more compelling.
Navigating European Regulation
A panel session entitled How Global Directives Impact Your Business: Waste Reduction & Increased Circularity provided insights into the current situation in Europe, where the industry is dealing with intensified government efforts to regulate packaging.
Stephanie Pochon, of Avisa Partners, a veteran EU lobbyist, summarized the current regulatory landscape in Europe, where there is an urgency to increase packaging sustainability.
"The main issue is more with the scale, and the pace of the changes needed," she said. "It also needs to be driven by innovation, not just by regulation...As an industry, you want to project where you want to go with decision-makers, and make sure that they are as pragmatic as possible."
Roeland Moens of Faber Group expressed his concern about the lack of statistics available to make compelling
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said.”
Interpal
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