Elections at the IPV: New board starts work
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The Industrial Association for Paper and Film Packaging has a new board. Jens Vonderheid has succeeded Klaus Jahn as spokesman of the board. He is managing director of HERA Papierverarbeitung GmbH & Co. KG in Schotten. Thomas Walcha, Managing Director of Heinrich Ludwig Verpackungsmittel GmbH in Siebenlehn, was re-elected as Treasurer. He has been a member of the board for some time. The future of the association is also in the hands of Carsten Gütt (Duni Group), Mike Hartung (Graf Verpackungen) and Harald Schäfer as members of the board. Jens Vonderheid was employed at management level at HERA for a long time before becoming the sole owner of the company in 2018.
"I would like to thank you for the trust you placed in me during the election. The altogether rejuvenated board is following in big footsteps, but also already brings some experience with it. That helps, of course," he explains, adding, "Of course, we would like to get more involved with technical innovations and improved manufacturing processes. Unfortunately, due to new or revised regulations at national and European level, we are constantly driven to work on completely different construction sites. Yet our members have enough tasks ahead of them in their own companies. First and foremost, there is a shortage of skilled and unskilled workers, and the steadily declining numbers of apprentices are increasingly alarming."
EU packaging regulation casts shadows ahead
The bureaucratic and legal tasks that lie ahead of the new board are enormous. For this reason, the IPV is also investing in the office in Frankfurt. For 2023, there are plans to enlarge the team of Managing Director Karsten Hunger accordingly. "It will mainly be bureaucratic tasks that need to be solved in the next few years, for example dealing with the amendment to the EU Packaging Regulation," explains Karsten Hunger. The regulation, so far a directive, is expected to include, among other things, extended reuse quotas, minimum recyclate use quotas for plastic as well as specifications on design for recycling. All of this must be brought into line with the German Packaging Act and should presumably be passed by the European elections in 2024. Big challenges with little time left, which feeds the companies' concern about similar mistakes in the legislation as with the Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) from 2021.
Litter fund and other "steering elements" disrupt daily business
The EU Packaging Regulation is by far not the only construction site: the revised minimum standard for measuring the recyclability of packaging, the publication of the Printing Ink Regulation and the "eternal" battle over the Mineral Oil Regulation continue to keep the association and its members very busy away from day-to-day business. In addition, there is the introduction of the littering fund and the pending plans for a plastic or packaging tax. "If we always have to deal with regulatory requirements, there is a great danger that there will be too little time left for real operational and technical tasks," Vonderheid concludes with a warning.
