After meeting Huguette Tiegna (Member of Parliament for the Lot and Chair of the study group on the circular economy), the ALL4PACK EMBALLAGE PARIS team is continuing its series of interviews with political decision-makers involved in transforming the packaging industry. Today, Marta de Cidrac, Senator for Yvelines, Vice-Chairwoman of the Senate’s Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development Committee and Chairwoman of the Circular Economy Study Group, discusses the challenges faced by industry players and the actions to be taken upstream and downstream to ensure a more sustainable future for the sector.

By way of introduction, Marta de Cidrac points out that “there are real issues behind the subject of packaging (…) that need to be understood in terms of both upstream and downstream issues “. On the one hand, it is essential that upstream ” our packaging has in mind the notion of bio-based and low-carbon “, i.e. that it is manufactured from renewable resources or whose production limits greenhouse gas emissions. Downstream, the senator recalls the three essential points on which the packaging sector must rely: biodegradability, reusability and recyclability. In her view, these issues have been clearly understood by the players in the industry. “Today, we are faced with innovation and research around packaging “, she adds. It’s a positive message that congratulates those in the industry who are moving towards more responsible packaging.

Also read: Roland Lescure: “The packaging sector is at the heart of the challenges of circularity and decarbonisation of industry”.

To underline the omnipresence of packaging in our daily lives, the senator from Yvelines is looking at the issue on several levels.

• On aninternational scale, with problems linked to pollution, particularly plastic pollution. ” If we don’t have agreements at international level to ensure that all countries are working in the same direction, it will obviously be difficult to achieve the targets “, she explains.
  
• At national level, she stresses the importance of prevention for the entire population. Awareness-raising campaigns need to be carried out to show the impact of packaging on our daily lives. ” We also need to remind people that packaging is in fact an industrial product which, by its very nature, is destined to become waste, something that is much less visible in the case of other products we consume “, she asserts.
  
• At alocal level, managing the waste generated by packaging is one of the major challenges facing local authorities.
  

According to Marta de Cidrac, we need to work together at all these levels to tackle the problems posed by packaging. She reaffirmed her confidence in the packaging industry ” to be able to offer us real progress every day, every week, every month in terms of reducing our packaging “. She concludes, ” Even if this may seem restrictive, even if it may present a few difficulties for our manufacturers, the important thing is to move forward hand in hand, listening to each other’s constraints, the obligations of others and the will of third parties, so that all the environmental issues and objectives are respected and our population can truly understand what lies behind every object purchased and packaging that produces waste “.

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