Design for Plastic 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.

Design For Recycling Tool

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:

SAPRO Position Paper - Definition of Recyclable

SAPRO has also produced a preliminary detailed Design for Recycling Guideline in the form of a downloadable PDF document.

This can be used as an explainer and information document, as well as instructions for assembling packaging elements in a way that results in packaging recyclability.

This document is more complex and detailed than the free online Design for Recycling Tool (above) and is also subject to change due to changing capabilities of the waste collection and plastic recycling industries. But this document offers guidelines that inform packaging designers on approach towards packaging design decisions. The below PDF document is free to download and use and is subject to the rationale applied from the “Recyclability Position Paper” above.

Design for Recycling Guideline Document