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Extended producer responsibility: a differentiated fee model to promote
sustainable packaging
Ana Pires1,2*, Graça Martinho1,2, Rita Ribeiro3, Mafalda Mota3, Luís Teixeira3
1
2
3
Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
UNINOVA, Center of Technology and Systems, Campus FCT–UNL, 2829–516 Caparica, Portugal
* Corresponding author. Tel.: + 351212948397; e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
Extended producer responsibility has not been capable to promote environmentalfriendly packaging, being the main appointed reason the economic instrument used:
producer fee. To make producer fee able to influence how packaging are produced, a
differentiated fee mathematical model is proposed. The mathematical model involves
several steps: sustainability criteria selection, criteria aggregation using multi-criteria
decision making, development of the sustainable fee calculation model, and a webbased interface for packers/product importers to calculate the differentiated fee. The
sustainability aspects considered are mostly environmental impacts resulting from the
life cycle assessment, being social aspects related to environmental information present
in the packaging. The mathematical model developed uses the sustainability result from
multi-criteria decision making, and can increase the actual fee if the sustainability is
low, i.e., environmental and social impacts are negative, and can decrease the actual fee
if sustainability is high. The model is implemented in a web-based interface, where
packers/product importers are able to simulate different packaging to reduce actual fee.
Finally is discussed the success of this approach and its potential to change packaging in
the near future, making them more sustainable.
Keywords: life cycle assessment impacts, environmental information, AHP, TOPSIS,
sustainable packaging
1. Introduction
In the European Union, packaging waste has been managed following the polluter pays
principle, where the polluter is responsible for impacts on environment caused by the
waste (pollution) released. However, other agents related to the packaging waste life,
namely the packaging producer, should be co-responsible and also contribute to reduce
pollution caused by packaging waste. Such extension of the responsibility is called
extended producer responsibility (EPR).
According to OECD (2001), EPR is defined as: an environmental policy approach in
which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage
of a product’s life cycle. There are two related features of EPR policy: (1) shifting of
responsibility (physically and/or economically; fully or partially) upstream toward the
producer and away from municipalities, and (2) provide incentives to producers to
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incorporate environmental considerations in the design of their products, such as reduce
material consumption, use more secondary material and promote product eco-design
(Forslind, 2009; OECD, 2001). To implement successful EPR is necessary an economic
instrument, a fee, paid by the producers to finance the entire system. This way, the value
paid will relieve municipalities from the financial burden of collection and managing
such waste, because the fee will be transferred to waste managers, ensuring the
necessary financial support.
The most disseminated EPR application is on packaging waste, being Green Dot System
(GDS) the most known. The empirical observation has highlighted the EPR feature in
moving management costs to producers and consumers; nevertheless there is neither
evidence that EPR has been able to promote a better packaging waste management nor
even that packaging design has been improved in environmental terms. According to
Watkins et al. (2012), there is no conclusive patterns which could attest EPR and
packaging recovery/recycling performance; Dempsey et al. (2010) realized that EPR has
not been designed or implemented to promote eco-design. Only recently, studies have
been conducted to analyze and explore the impact of EPR on innovative strategies,
namely in promoting eco-designed products (Brouillat and Oltra, 2012).
Several authors have emphasized the need to develop methodologies for the EPR fee
calculations, helping EPR to increase the impact at packaging design and management
(Mota et al., 2012; van Rossem, 2006; Watkins et al., 2012). There are several strategies
to calculate differentiated EPR fee. One strategy is based on packaging type (primary,
secondary, and tertiary), material type (paper/cardboard, plastic, metal, glass and wood),
volume and its origin (urban and industrial). This strategy is based on the packaging
waste managing costs. A lower fee can be applied when packaging material presents
higher density and high market value for the recycled material is verified. This strategy
can be easily implemented for generic materials but is more complicated to implement
for specific materials like different polymers types, or different papers types, just to
name a few. These will demand much more information concerning specific packaging
flow what would be costly. Also, such strategy is not enough to promote sustainable
packaging, because is focused on the economic aspects of managing packaging waste
only.
Another strategy to differentiate EPR packaging fee is through packaging recyclability.
This strategy has been used by the French Green Dot System (Eco-Emballages, 2014),
where penalization and reward, related to eco-design measures, is applied to the fee.
The penalizing system consists on raising fee in cases where packaging itself
contributes to recycled material degradation, or when the packaging is not recoverable
or do not have a recycling industry. In the case of reward, a fee reduction occurs when
the packaging producer develops source reduction actions or promotes environmental
awareness activities. This strategy is positive because is focused on recycling, favoring
recyclers. However, the financial effort is entirely at the side of the packer, not
encouraging an equal effort of all stakeholders in promoting better packaging. Such
strategy needs consensual agreement among stakeholders, concerning technical
specifications and minimal requirements, to ensure recyclables materials usage by
industry.
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The drawbacks found highlight the need to disclose new strategies that could upward
EPR to fulfil its purpose. In this work the aim is to promote an innovative strategy,
based on a model where EPR fee can be differentiated by the sustainability
demonstrated by the packaging life cycle. The sustainable producer fee (SPF) is a
differentiated fee, which includes sustainability aspects: economic, which is the fee to
be differentiated; environmental, where environmental impacts occurring during the life
cycle of packaging are considered; and social, related to the environmental information
present in packaging. To do so, a novel mathematical model for producer fee calculation
is proposed, developed and tested for a plastic primary packaging managed in Portugal
by the biggest packaging waste EPR system Sociedade Ponto Verde (SPV) (Portuguese
GDS).
2. The model design
The Portuguese Green Dot System is responsible for the packaging waste system
management, named SIGRE (in Portuguese: Sistema Integrado de Gestão de Resíduos
de Embalagens). Like other EPR systems, who pays the fee are entities that put
packaging products into the market – packers and importers of packed products. In Fig.
1 is presented the material and monetary flows of SIGRE.
(please insert Fig. 1 here)
The raw materials are converted into packaging material, being sold to manufacturers to
pack their products. Consumers buy packed products and then dispose packing waste
into recycling bins to be recycled. Source separated packaging waste is mainly
polyethylene terephthalate (PET), representing 52%, being the lowest separated
polypropylene (PP) film with 8% (Algar, 2010; Pordata, 2012; Valorlis, 2008). Waste
collectors deliver packaging waste into material recovery facilities, being then sorted
and sent for recycling. Recycled materials are then used for industry to make new
packaging or other products. Packaging which is not source separated is disposed with
commingled municipal waste, which can be sorted to be recycled (with a lower quality),
energetically recovered, or disposed in landfills.
Concerning the monetary flow, packers/product importers pay the fee to the producer
responsibility organization, the SPV. This organization promises to ensure that
packaging are retired in a way that is environmentally responsible and compliant with
EPR legislation (Spicer and Johnson, 2004). The fee is passed down to the distributors,
retailers and finally to consumers, being embedded in product price (not visible to the
consumer). The fee is used to pay the entire system of source separated collection,
transport and sorting for recycling. Recyclers pay for the sorted recyclable packaging
waste, provided by the waste manager, in an auction. This is the system for urban
packaging waste system.
In industrial packaging system, the waste producer needs to find who will receive
packaging waste, and market will drive its destination. Until now, packaging waste from
industry is sent for recycling and landfill, being an insignificant amount sent for energy
recovery. The industrial system is financed with the fee paid by who puts the packaging
in the market, being the amount gathered used to finance the information subsidy. The
industrial packaging system is based on market laws.
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Nowadays, the fee applied corresponds to the amount needed to finance the entire
system after deducing system revenues, only reflecting the economic aspect of the
system. To overcome the actual fee problems by not promoting sustainable packaging,
the proposed model to differentiate the fee considering sustainability of packaging life
cycle will consider the following aspects, being schematically described in Fig. 2:
 Determination of the target packaging: in SIGRE there are different types of
packaging. Primary packaging, which is in contact with the product, secondary
packaging, which is the merchandising unit and tertiary, which is the pallet unit.
The plastic bags are the grocery bags, and multipack is the packaging involving
a group of primary packaging (normally plastic film), which is sold as a pack. In
this work the focus will be on the primary plastic packaging, plastic bags and
multipacks. For each plastic packaging different polymers were selected based
on the most used nowadays, being presented in Table 1.
 System boundaries definition: the scope of packaging system boundary is the
whole packaging and packaging waste life cycle in Portugal. The packaging
system includes raw material extraction, transport, packaging production,
transport of packed product (with secondary and tertiary packaging involving
primary packaging) to distribution and to store, use and end-of-life management
(including selective collection and commingled municipal waste collection,
sorting, recycling, mechanical biological treatment, incineration and landfilling).
The product life cycle was excluded from the system boundary to simplify the
analysis. Such frontier is more significant when dealing with environmental
impacts, as described in section 3.1.1. The system is also divided in packaging
from urban and industrial systems, because the material flow is different.
 Sustainability criteria selection and calculation: to provide a sustainable
differentiated fee is necessary to define the sustainability elements to be used.
Concerning economic elements, since the fee already represents the cost of
managing plastic packaging, although is generic, because there is no information
that could differentiate properly for each type of polymer flow; the fee will be
the economic criterion. Concerning environmental criteria, the chosen ones are
from the life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA is the most used methodology to
quantify environmental impacts, being selected the CML method (CML is the
acronym for Center of Environmental Sciences from Leiden University) (Guinée
et al., 2001) to characterize environmental impacts. Other environmental criteria
considered are the amount of recycled material incorporated into the packaging.
Concerning social criteria, the chosen ones are related to the environmental
information to promote environmental awareness. The sustainability criteria
chosen will be used to elaborate the sustainability profile of the packaging.
 Criteria aggregation methods selection: after the profile is elaborated, is
necessary to aggregate all information into one value, classifying the packaging
sustainability. The field adequate to conduct this step is multi-criteria decision
making (MCDM) (Triantaphyllou, 2000). The main objective of MCDM is to
aggregate data from different natures and dimensions, being applied to ranking
alternatives, with the purpose to obtain the best solution fitting the criteria. The
method chosen to aggregate packaging attributes with weights criteria was the
technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS),
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developed by Hwang and Yoon (1981). Because packers/product importers give
different importance to criteria, the weights of each criterion has to be
determined. The method chosen to calculate the different criteria weights is the
analytical hierarchy process (AHP), developed by Saaty (1980).
 Sustainable fee calculation model: a mathematical model was developed to
ensure that a reward or penalty can be derived from the sustainability criteria.
 Proof of concept: the first prototype was developed with Microsoft Excel
software to assess compliance with the goals and definition of desired
functionalities. Several tests and validations were undertaken previously to the
web-based interface development.
 Web-based interface: a web-based interface implementing the model was
developed with Extension JavaScript 4.2 (EXT JS 4.2) (Sencha Inc., 2014). The
tool was delivered to SPV, to calculate the new differentiated fee.
Finally, the proposed model will henceforth be denoted PoVeRE, a Portuguese acronym
for
the
discriminating
SPF
project,
available
at
http://www.ca3uninova.org/project_povere.
(please insert Fig. 2 here)
(please insert Table 1 here)
3. PoVeRE: Model Description
In this section the details of the innovative model will be discussed, which main aim
was to help packers/product importers understand which aspects should be considered
to pay less fee through an expert system (learning) perspective. Depending on the type
of aspects different methodologies were considered, as described below.
3.1. Sustainable criteria selection and calculation
3.1.1. Environmental criteria by life cycle assessment
LCA methodology was selected to determine environmental impacts, being followed
the ISO 14040 standards family (ISO, 2006a,b). LCA is an assessment methodology
which compile holistically all the consumptions of materials and energy and all the
emissions resulting from the life cycle of a product or service. The norm divides LCA in
four steps: goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory, life cycle assessment and
interpretation. The software used to conduct the LCA was Umberto version 5.5 (ifu
Hamburg, 2009).
The intended goal and scope of LCA is to calculate the potential environmental impacts
of selected plastic packaging. The functional unit selected is 1,000 kg of product on a
pallet (of each of the three packaging systems already described) delivered to a retailer.
For each type of packaging the same functional unit was applied to calculate the
environmental impacts categories presented in environmental criteria.
Concerning boundaries, the LCA is attributional type because all burdens associated
with the life cycle of the packaging at a specific moment are assessed, and because
impacts have reduced impacts at the background (Chang and Pires, 2015). Because the
product LCA only focus on the packaging, not including the product, the LCA has a
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streamlined approach, like shown in Fig. 3. The geographic coverage established for the
tool is Portugal, however, the end-of-life of packaging also included Spain, since some
recycling units are located in that country. Concerning technology coverage, the data
collected has relevance at national and European level. The time frame correspond to
years 2010-2012.
(please insert Fig. 3 here)
In this system occurs multi-functionality related to co-products resulting recycling and
recovering packaging waste, like recycled plastic and electric energy. To solve multifunctionality, the system boundary expansion was applied as far as possible within the
constraints. For the purpose of the work, the recycled content is an important
consideration in reducing the environmental impacts of packaging. In the LCA, the
multi-functionality has to be solved without allocation, being applied the same strategy
of Verghese et al. (2010). They applied the 50:50 method, where 50% of recycling
benefit is allocated to the packaging system based on the content of recycled material in
the packaging and the other 50% is allocated based on the percentage packaging
recycled at the end-of-life. The 50:50 method is important to reflect the appropriate
packaging waste management, where recycled material is introduced again into the
packaging, closing the packaging material cycle.
The inventory compiled for each plastic packaging is based on sources presented in
Table 2. The processes constructed leveraged existing Umberto software (ifu Hamburg,
2009) material databases. When information was antique or not geographically
specified other databases were used. Concerning data quality, a geographic consistency
of data was accomplished. However, completeness was not possible to achieve for all
packaging stages, like filling stage. Filling was not considered because there was no
disaggregated information from national sources (filling is associated with the product
production, in most of plastic packaging).
(please insert Table 2 here)
The environmental criteria considered are the following six environmental impact
categories from CML 2001 (Guinée et al., 2001), selected from a total of 14 categories:
abiotic depletion, acidification, eutrophication, global warming, human toxicity and
photochemical oxidation. Those selected impact categories from CML are usually
applied at waste management (Pires and Martinho, 2013; Pires et al., 2011), packaging
and packaging waste (Bovea and Gallardo, 2006; Lazarevic et al., 2010).
3.1.2. Social aspects by environmental information
Concerning social aspects, the criteria selected are related to environmental awareness.
The presence of correct environmental information is important to ensure environmental
awareness, by promoting a better packaging waste management, specifically the
packaging life cycle closure by depositing packaging into recycling bins. This is
particularly relevant in Portugal, since there is no other instrument to make population
participate in packaging recycling schemes and recycling rates are low. Hence, the
criteria selected consider a yes/no for the presence of the environmental information:
recycling bin symbol, carbon footprint information, percentage of recycled material
incorporated in the packaging, trash bin symbol and absence of any environmental
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information. The two last criteria are negative criteria, because they either induce
incorrect procedures or do not contribute to correct packaging waste management.
The total of 12 criteria considered to define the sustainable packaging profile are
summarized in Table 3. Environmental impacts corresponds to the six categories plus
the incorporation of recycled material. The LCA calculation includes recycling, being
notorious for the team that the incorporation of recycled material itself is quite relevant
for closing the packaging life cycle and for the purpose of EPR, being this aspect
accomplished by the 50:50 method.
(please insert Table 3 here)
3.2. Sustainability criteria aggregation
A MCDM intends to assess different alternatives considering different criteria, resulting
a classification ranking between 0 and 1, where alternatives closer to 1 are the best. The
same philosophy is used to aggregate the several criteria characterizing plastic
packaging: a set of actual packaging are profiled according to sustainability criteria
chosen, and all are compared with the packaging which the packer/product importer
intends to put in the market. The MCDM results classify each packaging, being obtain a
dimensionless value for the packaging. The set of actual packaging assumed for urban
plastic packaging represents the most used in Portugal, based on the different packaging
materials presented in Table 1, without recycled material incorporation and without
environmental information.
The aggregation was performed with TOPSIS, a MCDM method created by Hwang and
Yoon (1981), based on the geometric concept that the chosen alternative should have
the shortest distance from the ideal solution and the farthest from the negative-ideal
solution. The value obtained with TOPSIS – relative closeness to the ideal solution, Rj –
is the dimensionless value needed to classify the packaging. To apply TOPSIS the
procedure is as follows (Hwang and Yoon, 1981; Jahanshahloo et al., 2006), being
presented the calculations for packaging set in supplementary data:
Step 1: Calculate the normalized decision matrix. The normalized value nij is calculated
as
nij 
xij
, i  1,..., n, j  1,..., m
m
x
j 1
(1)
2
ij
Step 2. Calculate the weighted normalized decision matrix. The weighted normalized
value vij is calculated as
vij  wi nij , i  1,..., n, j  1,..., m
(2)
n
where wi is the weight of the ith attribute or criterion, and
w
i 1
i
1.
Step 3. Determine the positive ideal (A+) and negative ideal (A-) solutions.
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
 v ,  , v   min v

| j  J , max v

| j  J 
A  v1 ,  , vn   max vij | j  J 1 , min vij | j  J 2
i
i
A

1

n
i
ij
1
i
ij
,
i  1,, m. (3)
2
where J1 is associated with benefit criteria, and J2 is associated with cost criteria.
Step 4. Calculate the separation measures using the n-dimensional Euclidean distances.
The distance of each alternative for positive ideal solution ( d j ) and for negative ideal
solution ( d j ) are given as, respectively,
𝑑𝑗+ =
2 1 2
𝑛
𝑣𝑖𝑗 − 𝑣𝑗+
𝑖=1
,
𝑑𝑗−
𝑖=1
(4)
2 1 2
𝑛
=
i  1,, m.
𝑣𝑖𝑗 −
𝑣𝑗−
Step 5. Calculate the relative closeness to the ideal solution Rj.
𝑅𝑗 =
𝑑𝑗−
𝑑𝑗+ + 𝑑𝑗−
, 𝑗 = 1, … , 𝑚
(5)
If d j ≥ 0 and d j ≥ 0, then R j  0,1 .
To determine the criteria weights to be used in TOPSIS in step 2 was used the AHP
method (Saaty, 1980). In this process, the decision maker carries out pairwise
comparisons between all criteria, which are then used to obtain overall priorities for
ranking the alternatives. The AHP allows for inconsistency in the judgments and
provides a means to improve consistency (Saaty and Vargas, 2001). The AHP is
developed based on the following three steps (Saaty, 1980), being presented the
auxiliary calculations in supplementary data section:
Step 1: compose a pair-wise comparison decision matrix (A)
𝐴 = 𝑎𝑖𝑚
1
1 𝑎12
=
⋮
1 𝑎1𝑛
⋯ 𝑎1𝑛
𝑎12
⋯ 𝑎2𝑛
1
⋱
⋮
⋮
1 𝑎2𝑛 ⋯ 1
𝑖, 𝑚 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛
(6)
Let C1, C2, …, Cn denote the set of elements, while aim represents a quantified
judgment on a pair of elements, Ci and Cm. The AHP decomposes decision problems
into a hierarchical structure through the pairwise comparison. Such comparisons are
recorded in a comparative matrix A, which must be both transitive such that if, i > j and
j > k then i > k, where i, j and k are alternatives; for all j < k < i and reciprocal, aij = 1/a
(Saaty, 1980).
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To make the pairwise comparison is used a measurement scale. Since there are some
mathematical problems with the AHP scale used in the pairwise comparisons (Ribeiro
et al., 2011), here the criteria were rated with the scale proposed by Ma and Zheng
(1991). Hence, verbal judgments can be expressed by degree of preference: equally
preferred with 9/9, moderately preferred with 9/7, strongly preferred with 9/5, very
strongly preferred with 9/3 and extremely preferred with 9/1; intermediate values are
used for compromise between the above values.
Step 2: Normalize the decision matrix. Priorities are then computed from the
comparison matrix by normalizing each column of the matrix, to derive the normalized
primary by geometric average. A set of n numerical weights w1, w2, …wi are obtained.
Step 3: Do consistency analysis
The AHP provides a method of calculating a decision-makers inconsistency, the
consistency index (CI) which is used to determine whether decisions are logical or
violate the transitivity rule, and by how much (Bello-Dambatta et al., 2009). CI is
defined by:
A  wi  max  wi ,
CI 
i  1,2,, n.
max  n
n 1
(7)
(8)
where λmax as above, n is dimension. Consistency ratio can be calculated through CI, CR
= CI/RI, where RI is a random index, where, for a matrix order of 12, the RI used was
1.54 (Lin and Yang, 1996). The number 0.1 is the accepted upper limit for CR. If the
final consistency ratio exceeds this value, the evaluation procedure has to be repeated to
improve consistency.
CR 
CI
RI
(9)
To determine the judgments for the pairwise criteria comparison three types of
packers/product importers profiles where theoretically assumed: an environmental
concern profile, a profit/marketing profile and a cost-effective profile. The first gives
more importance to environmental impacts and less to social criteria; the second gives
more relevance to the social criteria, seeing environmental information as green
marketing; and the third only intends to keep doing exactly what he/she already does.
The results of the AHP method to determine the relative importance for all 12 criteria
are displayed in Table 4. The most relevant criteria are recycling bin symbol, global
warming, and recycled material incorporation, being the less important the trash bin
symbol and information absence.
(please insert Table 4 here)
3.3. Sustainable fee calculation model
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The mathematical formula to differentiate the packaging fee to reward or to penalize the
packaging according to the sustainable perspective was developed. The proposed
mathematical formula is:
SPF  Fee  Fee  SustPercentage  SustAggregation  Packaging 
(10)
where:
SPF – sustainable producer fee (euros per tons, tons are metric tonnes)
Fee – actual fee applied to packaging waste (euros per tons)
SustPercentage – is the importance of sustainability (percentage value divided by100; it
cannot be 0)
SustAggregation – is the result from TOPSIS, Rj (between 0 and 1)
Packaging – corresponds to the packaging level considered neutral (dimensionless).
If SustPercentage is null, the SPF value will be equal to the Fee, representing that if
sustainability as no importance, there is no differentiation. The SustPercentage is
capable to change the amplitude of the SPF values compared to the actual fee applied.
The Packaging term defines if the packaging will pay less or more than the actual fee.
The effects of this two parameters, which can be defined by SPV, will be observed in
the case study in section 3.6.
3.4. Proof of concept
Now that all elements needed to differentiate the fee were described, is now time to
explain how their integration is made. In Fig. 4 is presented how the calculation
procedure occurs. First, the packer/product importer will choose the type of packaging
(primary packaging, plastic bag or multipack) and the type of material, in accordance to
options presented in Table 1. The amount of packaging material is added too. Then, the
packaging material environmental impacts are obtained from LCA database, and are
recalculated if incorporation of recycled material occurs. Social impacts are also
provided by the packer/product importer, finalizing the packaging profile.
Now the model calculates TOPSIS for the packaging introduced. To calculate TOPSIS,
the database packaging possesses the common packaging already existing in the market
concerning the plastic type, without recycled material content, and without
environmental information. For primary packaging for example, TOPSIS will consider
1+6 packaging alternatives (the introduced by packer/product importer + 6 types of
packaging based on the different polymers). The TOPSIS result will be SustAggregation
value. With the SPF formula defined in section 3.3, the differentiated fee can be
obtained. The parameters SustPercentage of 0.5 and Packaging of 0.8 are defined by
default.
(please insert Fig. 4 here)
3.5. Development of the web-based interface
The challenges during the interface development were three-folded: ensure easiness of
usage; operating as an expert system; and to have the same look of the actual interface
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of the annual SPF declaration to SPV, filled by packers/product importers for declaring
their packaging. First, a prototype to test the mathematical model in Microsoft Excel
was developed, allowing its revision and improvement. Then, the mathematical model
was translated into the web-based interface, developed in EXT JS 4.2 (Sencha Inc.,
2014), as displayed in Fig. 5.
This interface was validated with the prototype and further tested, allowing iterative
design refinements. The aim was to present the reward or penalization results in an
understandable way to whom has to pay the SPF and to allow them to simulate different
scenarios if they improve their packaging sustainability. The web-based tool presents
the results through a sequence procedure. The packer/product importer look firstly at the
usual fee to be paid, then to the different sustainability components and finally the SPF
to be paid.
(please insert Fig. 5 here)
3.6. Results generated and sensitivity analysis with case study
The case study chosen to show how the mathematical model differentiates the fee is the
PE primary packaging, urban system, which can be a bottle or a box. The actual fee paid
is 200.8 €/t. According to the sustainability criteria, this packaging has the profile
defined in Table 5. With the application of TOPSIS, where this packaging is compared
with the packaging set, is obtained the SustAggregation value, 0.8700. The SPF value
obtained is 193.77 €/t. This value is lower than the usual practiced by SPV because PE
material has a lower environmental impact than other polymers actually used and the
use of recycling bin symbol is benefic at social impact.
(please insert Table 5 here)
The sensitivity and parameter analysis were conducted by simulating SPF results for a
polyvinyl chloride (PVC) primary packaging with recycling bin symbol. Because PVC
has more negative impact than PE, the simple change of material reflects on the SPF
increase, being the value 212.80 €/t, a difference of 19.03€/t.
Besides the material type, the sensitivity analysis also have tested changes in social
impacts, being presented in Table 6. The SPF gets lower when the number of positive
environmental information (recycling bin symbol, carbon footprint) increases and if
they are relevant. For example, when recycling bin symbol is used, the decrease of SPF
is considerable because is a correct information and is one of the most important
criteria. When wrong information is present, the SPF value is higher. When positive and
negative environmental information is present, the SPF value is lower than with
negative information alone but higher than with positive information alone. For PVC,
the same results occur.
(please insert Table 6 here)
Other observations reflects that the incorporation of recycled material content also
reduces the SPF. When incorporation of recycled material is simultaneous with recycled
material content information, recycling bin symbol and carbon footprint, the SPF is the
lowest. The recycling material incorporation information by itself does not reduces
considerably SPF, since this criterion has a low importance.
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All these findings are true for both packaging materials PE and PVC. However, in PVC
with incorporation of recycled material, a different situation occurs from PE. When
recycling material incorporation information is used together with carbon footprint and
with trash bin symbol, the SPF obtained is lower than with the use of material
incorporation information alone. This occurs due to the negative environmental impacts
from PVC, which raises SPF value, being needed more environmental information to
reduce the fee. In PE case, its environmental impacts are reduced, making the presence
of negative information more penalizing than in the case of PVC.
For parameters analysis, SPF value can be higher or lower, depending on parameters
definitions. In Table 7 is presented the parameters analysis to SustPercentage and
Packaging. If both parameters are 1, the SPF is the biggest, 226.90 €/t, meaning that
when the packaging is compared to the most sustainable one and when sustainability is
the also of most importance, the packer/product importer needs to make a considerable
effort to reduce SPF. In opposition, when the sustainability is also important
(SustPercentage = 1) but the packaging is compared to the less sustainable (Packaging
= 0), the SPF value is the lowest, 26.10 €/t. Such result indicates to the packer/product
importer that there is no need to make changes in their packaging. This is a wrong
indication for packers/ product importers, and for that reason Packaging should not be
zero, but always have high values, near 1.
(please insert Table 7 here)
The results from PE and PVC can be compared by keeping parameters fixed, like is
shown in Fig. 6. Keeping fixed Packaging parameter and changing SustPercentage, the
SPF values raises for both packaging but the difference between them is bigger. This
fluctuation highlights how much this parameter can change the amplitude of the SPF.
To SPV, this parameter is useful to increase the differentiation of the fee between
packaging. Maintaining SustPercentage and changing Packaging parameter, the curves
of SPF values appear parallel, reflecting that this parameter can raise or low all the SPF
values in a proportional way. Such property allows SPV to establish where they want
the SPF values to be higher or lower than the actual fee. With this parameter SPV can
chose if they want all packaging paying more than the actual fee, all paying less or just
some paying more or less.
(please insert Fig. 6 here)
4. Discussion
The main challenges of the proposed mathematical model were the packaging life cycle
characterization according to sustainability perspectives, and also the combination of all
sustainability aspects to achieve a differentiated fee. Although the mathematical model
is capable to reach its purpose, several drawbacks have to be taken into account when
analyzing results. Concerning environmental criteria, LCA is related to average data of
different packaging sizes and functions for a specific polymer. An exhaustive survey of
the market, knowledge of all production processes individually and of their life cycle in
detail is needed to make the LCA results reflect all plastic packaging. Concerning social
aspects, the chosen criteria can be revised and changed, to enable other environmental
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information to be included, or even other social criteria related to jobs creation, working
conditions at recycling plants, for example.
The MCDM methodology has proven to be adequate to aggregate all sustainability into
one value. Weighting criteria was theoretical, but weighting process can be easily made
in practice, through the organization of a panel of EPR stakeholders, including
packers/product importers. The aggregated result obtained from TOPSIS, a value
between 0 and 1, facilitated the mathematical model elaboration.
The mathematical model obtained is versatile, capable of raising or reducing the
amplitude between fees by the parameter SustPercentage. This amplitude can be
determinant to make packers/product importers to change packaging for more
sustainable ones. Another particularity of the mathematical model is the ability for SPV
to adapt the formula in function of the revenues needed to sustain the SIGRE, namely
market changes for recycled materials and amounts of packaging waste collected and
sorted. Such can be done by the parameter Packaging. Although the versatility
demonstrated during parameter analysis, the parameters values to be carefully defined to
not give wrong information to packers/product importers and to ensure the economic
sufficiency of SPV.
The mathematical model developed enabled SPF to vary depending on different
situations, being lower than actual fee in cases where adequate environmental
information is displayed, with recycled material incorporated and when the polymer
used have the best environmental impact. The SPF is higher than the actual fee when
there is no environmental information, there is no incorporation of recycled material,
and when the used polymer has higher environmental impact. The user-friendly webbased interface allows packers/product importers to understand why and how much they
are paying or avoiding to pay, giving the correct indications about the packaging used.
5. Conclusions
This work discussed a mathematical model to calculate a differentiated fee for
packaging, considering its sustainability. The streamlined LCA, associated with the
MCDM methods TOPSIS and AHP, has resulted in an accurate, transparent and
compromise solution highlighting the packaging impacts in environment and society,
and helping in decision making process. The sustainable mathematical model provides
an innovative solution to differentiate fees, which can be applied in other product EPR
systems. This first approach was only focused in plastic packaging, but its extension to
other packaging materials is possible.
To make this differentiated fee model sustainability-based successful, a sufficient
difference between better and worse packaging has to be ensured, in opposition to the
actual situation, where packaging are developed based in marketing and product
protection only. The behavior change of who puts the packaging on the market will
always be dependent on the consumer. For that reason, future works should be focused
on the study of stakeholders’ opinion on the mathematical model and tool developed to
differentiate the fee. Consumers’ opinion concerning sustainable packaging should also
be studied. In fact, if sustainable packaging are not preferred by the consumer, the effort
from packers/product importers does not have a positive return. Since the model was
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only developed for a country, the impacts will only be reflected at the national
packaging and not at imported products packaging.
Acknowledgements
This work was performed within the PoVeRE project, financed by Sociedade Ponto
Verde, S.A., for which the team is grateful.
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Highlights
A mathematical model to differentiate packaging fees was developed.
Environmental and social aspects were examined as differentiator factors.
Multi-criteria decision methodologies are capable to integrate sustainability aspects.
Positive social and environmental impacts reduces packaging fee and vice-versa.