My wife and I vacationed in Europe this summer, and I couldn’t help but notice that package design, recycling infrastructure and package re-use habits differ in many ways from what is found in the United States.

Tethered Caps

Yes, tethered caps on bottles is actually a thing in Europe.

I’ve been to Europe several times, mostly because my wife is from Prague, so we usually spend several days there. What made this trip different was – for the first time – tethered caps were definitely ubiquitous. We’re big drinkers of sparkling water, and all of the two-liter plastic bottles that we purchased had tethered caps.

Of course, this should have been no surprise to me. The European Union’s Single-Use Plastics Directive went into effect in July of this year. The aim of the Directive is to reduce unintended environmental waste and facilitate the recycling of caps and closures along with their containers. Plastic caps and lids are required to remain attached to beverage containers of up to three liters in volume.

Italian Lessons

We also managed to spend a few days on the Italian island of Capri. I’ve been to Italy several times, and this trip reminded me once again of how organized the Italians are when it comes to recycling.

I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, but not Italian. Most of the Italian I know comes from the multiple waste disposal bins that you find in any Airbnb in Italy.

Some of the commonly used categories are organic waste (rifiuti di origine organica or umido/organico), paper and cardboard (carta e cartoncino), plastic (imballaggi in plastica), glass (vetro) and undifferentiated waste (indiferenziato).

And, best of all, the recycling areas where you dispose of your trash generally feature the same categories of bins as the ones in your Airbnb.

Goodbye to Single-use Plastic

Finally, Europeans have several creative albeit informal ways of ensuring that packaging is used more than once.

When we were in the small town of Agia Roumeli on the Greek island of Crete, we were tasked by one of my wife’s Czech relatives to purchase some Cretan honey from one of her favorite restaurants there. The restaurant informed us that they could provide the honey but asked if we could provide some plastic containers. We dutifully supplied them with some of our empty San Pellegrino water bottles.

In summary: In the best of all possible worlds, I would be in a position to attend several of the highly informational packaging conferences and trade shows held in Europe each year. In the meantime, I’ll try to learn what I can via my travels.

Brad Addington
Chief Editor, Packaging Strategies
(248) 227-4727
addingtonb@bnpmedia.com