Helllloooo my long lost sustainable packaging friends!
I am back from Toronto with nothing to report re: Sustainable Packaging Coalition meeting. Why, you ask? The meeting just too darn fascinating to take notes? The insights just too mind-blowing to register? NOPE. I was sick. And cooped up in my hotel room. I have never been sick in another country on business before, and let me tell you, twas not fun. No fun indeed. If I could embellish, just a bit…
…Imagine me, crying, clinging to my passport and a map trying to find the alleged walk in clinic suggested by my hotel. A lot of stuff is connected underground in Toronto, so I was technically able to walk to the clinic from my hotel lobby without ever leaving the comfortable confines of a building...if only I could find it. Luckily, what can only be interpreted as a “local” stopped and asked if I needed help, where I dramatically replied, YESSSSSS. So, to make a long story short, I saw a Doctor and got medicine and spent the remainder of my conference existing on texts with colleagues at the conference and tea and bread.
Here is what I heard, however, through the grapevine:
Erin Shrode of Teens Turning Green was really impressive. She is one of the presenters who peeked my interest when the conference agenda was released, as she is TWENTY and kicking some serious sustainable brand butt. She was to lecture on the Millennials i.e. consumers aged 18-28, and their media consumption and purchasing habits, with emphasis on how technology and transparency be utilized to foster brand loyalty. I was real bummed I missed her, but luckily a friend emailed me a YouTube video of her presenting on the same content at a previous event, which I thoroughly suggest you watch; to do so,
click here.
The other two presentations I heard were pretty remarkable include Mike Biddle’s “War on Waste” (President of
MBA Polymers) and Keefe Harrison’s discussion of plastic laminate recycling (Consultant for Resource Recycling Systems). I’m going to review their presentations (they were just posted online) and will get back to you with any takeaways.
Wow. Between my hard-drive crashing, hence my notes from Sustainability in Packaging disappearing, to missing the entire SPC conference, I am on a roll. A bad roll.
BUT, I leave next week for Walmart’s Sustainable Value Network meeting AND the
Bioplastics Compounding and Processing conference, which I am presenting Dordan’s
Bio Resin Show N Tell at. So fear not! I will have more tantalizing tid bits in the world of sustainable packaging to report on very soon.
AND, I am cooking u a new super intense sustainability initiative at Dordan, more details to come! BUT, if all goes according to plan, it will provide the content for a new discovery narrative, akin to the
clamshell recycling initiative, via yours truly at good ole’ recyclablepackaging.org.
Stay tuned!