Summary and conclusions, Miljøstyrelsen

Miljøstyring i plastindustrien

Summary and conclusions

This report summarizes the experiences gained in the projects "Environmental Management I in the Plastics Converting Industry", "Environmental Management II in the Plastics Converting Industry", and "Environmental Management and Plastics – Communication and Economics". The projects were carried out in the period of 1996-2001 with financial support from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and the Danish Agency for Trade and Industry.

The overall goal of the projects was to encourage a continuous improvement of the environmental efforts in the plastics converting industries using an integrated approach at trade level in the area of environmental management.

In total, environmental management systems were implemented in 31 plastics converting industries and based on this work a manual with all the gained experienced was developed.

Environmental Management I and II have resulted in several tangible environmen-tal improvements as follows:

Reduction of the consumption of chemicals and raw materials

Reduction of the consumption of energy and thereby of the emission of CO₂

Reduction of the consumption of water

Reduction of the discharges to water recipients

Improvement of the waste separation and increase of the waste recycling.

In the project on environmental management and economics, the financial aspects of implementing a certified environmental management system was analysed using a questionnaire. The analysis did not lead to an unambiguous result. This could be related to the fact that the analysis was based on a relatively limited number of questionnaires. Therefore, the answers that are evaluated in the analysis should rather be regarded as individual comments than as comments relevant for the whole plastics converting industry.

Some of the interviewed industries in the analysis evaluate that it has been a beneficial investment to implement environmental management. Other companies have not obtained the expected economic benefits while implementing environ-mental management. In general, it appears to be very individual whether an industry can obtain economic benefits by implementing environmental management.

On the other hand the analysis shows that the plastics converting industries typically have obtained other benefits by implementing environmental management. However, the industries have not been capable of evaluating the economic value of these benefits.

Those industries that aim being at the leading edge with respect to environmental matters have had their expectations met while participating in the projects Environmental Management I or II. However, those industries that had high financial expectations did not have their expectations met. In all, none of the participating companies did regret their participation in the projects.