Sustainable Solutions for SCM

All considerations concerning the handling of the goods must appear both on the package markings and documents, and the information must be analogous. Confusion and delays have occurred because the package has the address of the place/terminal where the goods enter the country (harbour, airport or border crossing point) and the documents have the final delivery address in another part of the country. If the sender accepts the goods to be handed over only when some special conditions/requirements are met, naturally these terms must be carefully written on the transportation documents. Also it is important to remind the delivery personnel about the existence of special release conditions. When operating in international trade, all rules and regulations of transit and destination countries must be known before shipments because the lack or delay of some required documents are bound to cause obstacles and delays at the border stations and may cause some damages to the cargo. 5.2.6 Sustainable packing An approach toward product packaging that considers the full environmental impact of the production and disposal of the packaging material. A sustainable package will generate less waste than conventional packaging. It will also be manufactured from materials that use the least amount of non-recyclable material; for example, rather than use newly made plastic wrappers, it may use recycled paper. Furthermore, it will be manufactured using processes that use the least amount of energy possible. Remove, Reduce, Recycle, Renew, Re-use. These are five of the original 7 Rs of Sustainable Packaging defined by Wal-Mart when it introduced its Packaging Scorecard at Pack Expo 2006. The mega-retailer has since shortened the list to reduce, reuse and recycle, but also added a new term, rethink, to encourage companies to always remember to consider smarter sustainable options. To better understand sustainable packaging, we need to understand what sustainability is and how it is different from the focus in the 1970s on the environmental aspects and impacts of packaging. Sustainability surfaced in packaging vernacular in 2006 after publication of “The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success - and How You Can Too” by Savitz with Weber [4]. This broader look expands on packaging’s previous environmental-only focus to include the business (economic) and social aspects (such as ethical material sourcing and manufacturing conditions). The basis for sustainable packaging started during the environmental movement in the 1970s. Americans celebrated their first Earth Day in 1970, and became aware of some of our ecological problems such as pollution and littering through various media outlets. The finger-pointing at packaging as the main culprit of the country’s ecological problems did not happen in force until the late 1980s. That was when the Garbage Barge became a media sensation. Piled high with trash from Long Island residents, the Mobro 4,000 barge left New York City on March 22, 1987, initially heading for a

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