Packaging waste

The main legislation concerning packaging in Europe is the Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste. It includes provisions for the control of hazardous substances, as well as heavy metal content. The harmonised European standards in the series EN 13427 to EN 13432 give a presumption of compliance with the Directive. SCA Containerboard’s approach to conformity is based on these standards.

• Recoverable nature of packaging

Since these requirements are principally concerned with packaging, only packaging manufacturers should in principle make statements on the elements of recovery: material recycling, energy recovery and composting. However based on the high level of recycling of corrugated products, containerboard paper grades can be considered as recoverable in the form of material recycling and because they contain more than 50% organic material, containerboard paper grades are recoverable through incineration with energy recovery. Although paper and board products can generally be considered to be recoverable by composting, a formal statement of compliance is not being made for containerboard at this time.

• Noxious and other hazardous substances

Following the EN 13428 assessment methodology, SCA Containerboard certifies that substances or preparations classified as dangerous to the environment and assigned the symbol "N" as required by Directive 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC are minimised in emissions, ash and leachate.

• Heavy metals

It has been established over a long period that paper and board, whether of primary or secondary fibre, contain only very low levels of heavy metals (for packaging grades less than a total of 20ppm). SCA Containerboard certifies that the sum of the concentration levels of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium is below 100 ppm (the level specified for all packaging components from 30 June 2001).