The Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide has recently been translated into Thai, making it the 10th translation now available through the World Packaging Organisation (WPO) website.
The ‘Packaging Design for Recycling Guide’ is a starting point to understand Best Practice examples using state-of-the-art technology that can then be applied and tailored to suit the recovery and recyclability capabilities and infrastructure on a regional and local level.
The formal launch of the Thai Translation was undertaken at ProPak Asia in Bangkok with the President of the WPO, Prof Pierre Pienaar, Vice President Sustainability & Save Food, Nerida Kelton, members of the Thai Packaging Association and the translators of the guide from the Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University all in attendance.
Jeeranuch Buddeejeen, Ph.D. (Industrial Engineering),Lecturer (Packaging Technology and Product Management), School of Science and Technology at the Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University formally launched the Thai guide and wanted to thank the WPO for their support in making this translation possible.
“Thank you very much to the WPO for allowing us the opportunity to not only translate this important global packaging design for recycling guide, but also to enable the University to be able to use the guide in their curriculum,” Ms Buddeejeen said.
“I hope that all of the young packaging designers at universities and entrepreneurs in the packaging industry globally can gain knowledge and understanding of the standard for circular packaging design that is set out in this guide. I believe that good packaging design will help Thai people to have a better quality of life and make our planet better,” she said.
“The team of translators also delivered the guide to the university’s central library and 10 campus libraries so that is accessible to everyone to use. Our management team would like to thank the World Packaging Organisation and the Thai Packaging Association for such a wonderful experience over the last 12 months. My goal now is to establish a Sustainable Manufacturing and packaging Excellence Centre so that students and industry can practice and test the application seriously.” Ms Buddeejeen said.
Nerida Kelton, Vice President Sustainability & Save Food for the WPO added that the opportunity for Members of the WPO to be in physical attendance at this launch was very special.
“During ProPak Asia we had the opportunity to meet many of the members of the translating team and also many students who are using the Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide in their degrees. We need to see more academic institutes like the Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University training students to design out waste at the start and teaching them to better understand the end of life for packaging materials through collection, sorting, recycling and reprocessing capabilities. It is so important that all students across the globe are trained in designing with recyclability in mind so that they design out all unnecessary materials, packs and waste at the start,” Mrs Kelton said.
“Design for recycling is part of circular product design and represents an important basis for holistic sustainability assessment. Accordingly, circularity means that the packaging is designed in such a way that the highest possible recycling of the materials in use can be achieved. The goals here are resource conservation, the longest possible service life, material-identical recycling (closed-loop recycling) or the use of renewable materials. Circular packaging should therefore be designed and manufactured in such a way that it can be reused (reusable solution) and/or that the raw materials used can be reused to a large extent as secondary raw materials after the use phase (recycling) and/or consist of renewable raw materials,” she said.
In conclusion WPO President, Prof. Pierre Pienaar added that he believes that an exciting future awaits our Thai colleagues and everyone that is now able to reference this WPO Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide.
“I am confident that this guide will make the student’s lives easier as they work towards more sustainable packaging design and development in Thailand. I would encourage everyone in Thailand to please use it and tell all of your colleagues about how they can access the guide through the World Packaging Organisation website for free. I would also like to thank those from Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University and the Thai Packaging Association (TPA) for all of their hard work and efforts that they put into translating this guideline so that all of Thailand can now use it freely and intentionally. Acknowledgement must also be extended to Patra Khunawat from the Thai Packaging Association who led this project with the University. We wish all of the students much success in their packaging careers.” Prof. Pienaar said.
The Thai translation is available to download and access for free via the World Packaging Organisation website.
https://worldpackaging.org/Uploads/2023-06/ResourcePDF59_1685695911.pdf
The global ‘Packaging Design for Recycling Guide’ has been developed by the WPO, Circular Analytics, FH Campus University of Applied Sciences and ECR Community.
