Magazine: „Plastic led the way to the abrupt development of food safety”

Miklós Nagy
secretary general
CSAOSZ

The Hungarian Association of Packaging and Material Handling (CSAOSZ) celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The packaging industry contributes 1.6 per cent to the Hungarian GDP, produces a value of over 700 billion forints and sells more than 50 per cent of the products manufactured in Western countries. And CSAOSZ has a part in the development these statistics show. It helps its member companies with enhancing their market opportunities, and by setting up Hungarian stands at internationally revered exhibitions and trade fairs – Miklós Nagy told. The excellence of the Hungarian packaging experts is also reflected in the fact that Hungarian packaging designers won 115 prizes at the World Packaging Organisation’s awards between 1997 and 2020. Moreover, in 2016, WPO held its award gala in Budapest.

The pandemic has largely affected the packaging industry and immediately raised the value of packaging in general. For the purposes of safeguarding food safety, the Ministry of Agriculture asked CSAOSZ to co-operate and to signal any incidence that would in any way harm the safety of supply. In the end, the industry performed well and it has become crystal clear once again, that neither the actors of the economy nor the authorities can work effectively without the expertise and network of trade associations.
Waste management in Hungary is another problem to be solved, which is underway in the coordination of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology. In response to the question how reasonable the concerns over single-use plastic are, Miklós Nagy told that the current SUP directive has been elaborated and passed in a haste and fail to render a real solution as e.g. alternatives to single-use plastic such as biodegradable plastic can only be managed in industrial composting facilities. What is more worrying for me is that certain compostable plant fibre plates are regular “participants” of European-level product recalls for food safety reasons.

„The use of alternatives to single-use plastic combined with negligent human behaviour will end up in no progress” – Miklós Nagy, secretary general of CSAOSZ told

The belief that sustainability and plastic mutually exclude each other is quite wide-spread. Miklós Nagy, secretary-general of ­CSAOSZ sees the public be half- or even misinformed. From the aspect of packaging, sustainability infers the joint performance of three requirements: maximum product protection, minimum ecological footprint and the possibly maximum closure of the material cycle. If the packaging is designed based on these three principles, even plastic may be the winner. It should be kept in mind, that plastic is the material that leads the way to the development in leaps and bounds of food safety. Real sustainability comes when packaged goods are protected in the most effective way.

The results of HUNGAROPACK, the Hungarian Packaging Competition will be announced online in October. This year, many innovations were entered that all were highly interesting and valuable, that could result in not only economic but also significant environmental benefits – Mr. Nagy told. //