Design for recycling guidelines

Design for recycling

Packaging can have a negative perception with consumers and environmentalist groups. This is compounded by the perception that most packaging is single-use and generally ends up in landfills or the environment.

Despite the need for packaging to protect its contents, customers also want to see active steps taken to make it more sustainable. Recyclability has become a significant concern to South African consumers.

To this end, SAPRO and its partners (Polyco, WWF Nedbank Greentrust and Designed For Earth) developed a Design for Recycling tool that indicates the recyclability of a packaging item based on the details provided by the packaging designer. This is a FREE to use web-based solution that also produces On-Pack Recycling Labels (OPRLs) in an auto-generated recyclability report.

There has been much debate about how to determine if an item should be labelled as recyclable or not recyclable. SAPRO has gone into depth to explain the correct way to define “Recyclable” and why this is so. You can access the SAPRO position paper on this topic in the link below: