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Published in Paul Micklethwaite, Beyond Recycling, 2021
The European Green Dot logo appears on much consumer product packaging, in Europe and beyond. This logo indicates that the company placing a product on the market contributes to the collective costs of material recovery and recycling in that particular product or material sector. It does not mean that a particular package bearing the label has either been recycled or is itself recyclable. The Green Dot signifies that for each piece of packaging, a financial contribution has been paid to a national packaging recovery organisation (Valpak, 2020). The symbol is used internationally. In countries where the Green Dot scheme applies, such as Germany, producers use the logo to signal to consumers that they participate in a compliance scheme, and contribute to the financing of collection, sorting and recovery of packaging. Manufacturers may, however, also use the Green Dot symbol in countries where the scheme does not apply, such as the UK. The UK has its own Packaging Waste Recovery Note system to support the recovery and recycling of packaging waste. This involves the purchase of certificates of recycling evidence to show that a company has met their obligations to fund the recycling and recovery of packaging waste, as required by UK Packaging Waste Regulations. If a company exports its products to other European countries, it may well need to also display the Green Dot on its packaging to demonstrate compliance with that scheme elsewhere. The company may therefore purchase a Green Dot sub-licence in the UK to avoid printing two sets of packaging – one without the Green Dot for the UK, and one with the Green Dot for exports. The Green Dot then appears on packaging sold in the UK despite that fact that the scheme does not apply there. This is unlikely to be understood by consumers, who will naturally assume the Green Dot is an assurance of participation in a UK recycling scheme.
A joint economic lot-size model for sustainable industries of recycled content products
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2020
Mostafa Parsa, Ali Shahandeh Nookabadi, Zümbül Atan
Another example is provided by German’s large-scale EPR closed-loop chain in the framework of ‘Green Dot Programme’ established by the Duales System Deutschland AG (DSD) under the low of ‘Ordinance on the Avoidance and Recovery of Packaging Waste 1991-amended 1998’ as well as European Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste. The Green Dot's imprint on a packaging material signals that its manufacturer has paid an annual license fee to DSD for the collection, sorting, and recycling of used packaging material (paper/cardboard, glass, aluminium, tinplate, plastic, and composites). The EPR closed-loop production system increases the profits of parties involved in the reverse supply chain by reducing post-consumer waste inventory costs. This leads to a high recycled content level implying an environmental solution, which is also the best solution in terms of chain-wide total profit. Therefore, the Green Dot system has achieved great success as a European model so that most EU countries have adopted this system for their reverse supply chain of packaging waste material.