As discussed earlier, packaging represents over 30
percent of municipal solid waste and it is growing
in proportion. In an effort to reduce packaging
waste at landfills, much of the recent environmental
legislation around the world is directed toward
packaging. Germany’s Green Dot Program of 1991
requires shippers to take full responsibility for the
disposal of transport packaging. The German law
specifies that shippers should collect, process, and
recycle 95 percent of transport packaging.18 Both the
state of Wisconsin and the city of Toronto ban the
disposal of certain types of packaging waste such as
expanded polystyrene (EPS) and wood pallets.19
Furthermore, the United Nation’s performanceoriented
packaging requirements mandate that
buyers should know the type of hazard posed by
transport packages.