Sustainable packaging: Plastic Waste Free World Conference & Expo and Future Resources highlight challenges and opportunities

November 2023 was all about innovative developments, new materials and pioneering technologies in the field of sustainable packaging. At the Plastic Waste Free World Conference & Expo and the Future Resources symposium in Cologne, numerous experts, retailers, manufacturers, decision-makers and pioneers from the industry came together to discuss the opportunities for reducing plastic waste in the environment and the latest developments and challenges in the field of sustainable packaging. Colleagues from Koehler Innovation & Technology and Koehler Paper were also present.

This year's Plastic Waste Free World Conference & Expo focused on consumer goods and retail packaging, new sustainable and materials and chemicals as well as reducing manufacturing emissions in production. More than 600 participants presented industry innovations and ground-breaking technologies and exchanged views on market trends, current legislation and the optimization of manufacturing processes.

"The exchange with experts from trade, industry, politics and associations is very valuable for us. Because only together can we get real innovations off the ground and design future-proof packaging that has real added value," says Dr. Markus Wildberger, Corporate Director Technology at Koehler Innovation & Technology, explaining participation in the events.

The Future Resources symposium took place under the motto "Future Resources - Future Perspectives". The conference, with more than 180 participants, offered the opportunity to exchange views on sustainable packaging design, innovative materials and forward-looking strategies with presentations and discussion panels. The focus was on paper packaging. The panel of this discussion covered the entire value chain of paper packaging: from paper packaging manufacturers and representatives of the waste separation initiative to paper recyclers. This allowed various perspectives on the future of paper packaging to be presented.