The 4evergreen alliance has won a prestigious award from the European Paper Recycling Council (EPRC) in the ‘Information and Education’ category. The award recognises 4evergreen’s work on the ‘Guidance on the Improved Collection and Sorting of Fibre-based Packaging for Recycling’, which provides best practices and recommendations to enhance fibre-based packaging recycling across Europe.

The European Paper Recycling Awards, which are held every two years, celebrate innovative and impactful initiatives that support the paper recycling value chain and contribute to the European Green Deal objectives. The ‘information and education’ category honours projects that raise awareness and educate stakeholders and the public about the benefits and challenges of paper recycling. 4evergreen was presented the award by MEP Susana Solís at a ceremony in the European Parliament on 19 February.

4evergreen’s guidance on improved collection and sorting, launched in September 2022, is based on extensive research and consultation with experts from the fibre-based packaging value chain, waste management, municipalities, and NGOs. The guidance recommends a two-stream collection system and provides practical advice on how to optimise collection and sorting. In December 2023, an updated version of the guidance was released with further industry insights on collection routes in Europe.

4evergreen’s ‘Guidance on the Improved Collection and Sorting of Fibre-based Packaging for Recycling’ is part of a series of expert-led industry tools the 4evergreen alliance is developing to help drive the sector towards its ambition of perfecting the circularity of fibre-based packaging.

The toolbox also includes: the Recyclability Evaluation Protocol – part one for standard mills that provides a harmonised method to evaluate individual fibre-based packaging products and score their suitability for recycling in standard mills. Parts two and three for de-inking and specialised mills are underway. the Circularity by Design Guideline –that offers recommendations to designers and manufacturers to evaluate the compatibility of materials and components with standard and specialised recycling processes; particularly, for the recycling of used beverage cartons (UBC) and packaging of similar composition. The alliance is working to extend these tools over all the categories of fibre-based packaging to ensure that these valuable raw materials will be kept in the production loop as long as possible.