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ABSTRACTLow‐waste packaging may imply an inconvenience to consumers and cause firms to offer a compensating price discount. For example, Starbucks' "Take the Mug Pledge" campaign provides a 10‐cent discount for customers who purchase coffee without a standard cup (i.e., customers provide their own cup). Understanding how such a discount drives demand and profit is the focus of this article. We consider a monopolist that can offer a reduced‐packaging option for its product at a variable cost savings. That option implies a transactional "inconvenience" cost for consumers. While that transactional cost is generally positive, our model also permits some consumers to associate convenience with reduced packaging. We derive the optimal price and discount that maximize profits. We show the optimal discount is bounded by the magnitude of the variable cost savings associated with the packaging reduction. We explore when the optimal discount is negative (a price premium), which requires a specific proportion of consumers to associate convenience with reduced packaging. We also derive conditions under which the firm should price to eliminate demand for the standard product, rather than segment the market, to leverage the variable cost savings of reduced packaging. When the variable cost savings are low (e.g., as is true for Starbucks), we show the profit curve for the segmenting policy is relatively flat for a discount up to several multiples of the cost differential. Finally, we demonstrate the potential for the reduced packaging option, with optimal discounting, to simultaneously increase profit and consumer surplus while reducing waste.

Discusses the relationship between logistics, packaging and the
environment. Attempts to clarify industry confusion by identifying the
current status of the proposed EC Directive on Packaging and
Packaging Waste, which focuses on the recovery of packaging
materials. This directive has major implications for logistics. Presents
a survey conducted with UK marketing executives involved with the
production of consumer goods. Finds that awareness of the EC packaging
directive is very high – especially among medium– and
large‐sized companies. Respondents were concerned that the directive
would create excessive distribution costs for their firm. Proposes that
it is in this area where the benefits of information technology may be
realized by allowing the efficient management of the increased volume of
information created by reverse logistics. Finds that industry is
somewhat unsure of what the directive is meant to achieve and who will
be responsible for carrying out its requirements. Suggests that it would
be unwise at this stage for firms to make significant spending decisions
until the directive has been finally adopted since the directive as it
currently stands raises more questions than it answers.

This Policy Brief identifies three key areas where the Packaging Act (Verpackungsgesetz) can be strengthened and clarified.

The global amount of waste generated by households, including food packaging waste, has been increasing continuously across the world, posing a massive threat to societies and the environment. Proper waste management, therefore, has become a challenging environmental issue and a priority for governments. Along with the technological advances, such as material recovery technologies, more stress has been placed on the strategies for moving away from disposal to waste prevention, separation, and recycling. Considerable efforts are being made to not only limit the overall production and the negative impact of waste on the environment and human health but also to minimize the cost of waste management. Separation of wastes at the source (i.e., source separation) is an integral part of such efforts toward enhancing the purity of collected waste and improving the quality of materials for recycling. Furthermore, sorting of waste as a habitual performance can serve as a practice for improving residents' recycling/sorting behavior. The packaging waste, including food packaging, forms a significant part of the municipal solid waste. The design of food packaging, therefore, has received a lot of attention as a useful tool to influence the consumers' sorting behavior, making it an interesting concept for research related to waste management. Presumably, the design of food packaging can meet consumers' sorting demands while being instructive and facilitating the sorting process, thus enhancing the recycling rate of the food packaging waste. Finding the ideal form of food packaging, however, requires an in-depth understanding of the packaging-consumer interactions throughout the sorting process. Considering the different characteristics of food packaging, it is expected that different food packages tend to influence a consumer in different ways. Nevertheless, the current knowledge is somewhat too general to be used by packaging developers to improve the sorting of the food packaging. Hence, the present thesis aims to provide a more in-depth insight into the influence of food packaging, as a product and service provider, on the consumer's/user's decision-making on sort of food packaging waste. The results assert that packaging to be sorted properly requires proper design to manifest its sorting related abilities such as easy to empty, easy to clean, and easy to fold, for the consumer. Selecting material, visual attributes, form, and function can amplify or reduce these sorting abilities of food packaging.

All European Union (EU) member states have to comply with the demanding recycling rates targets that were set for the recovery of packaging waste in the Directive 94/62/EC. Nevertheless, each country has its own system for accomplishing these targets. Some already had national legislation when the Directive entered into force. Others had to "start from scratch". Indeed, many countries have experienced massive improvements in the waste management systems in the last years; these include the closing of dumps and the construction of complying sanitary landfills. The "maturity levels" of the waste management frameworks are different for the diverse EU countries. Evidently, this has consequences for the efficiency and effectiveness of the recycling system. Moreover, one can observe very different approaches for managing household packaging waste, although there is still a lack of evidence regarding the outperformance (if one considers economic and environmental aspects altogether) of any approach over another. This paper presents and discusses the pros and cons of the recycling systems of household packaging waste for five EU countries, namely: France, Germany, Portugal, Romania and the UK. We compare institutional frameworks, recycling rates, green dot fees and, whenever possible, recycling costs and benefits (i.e. the costs of selective collection and sorting on the one hand, and the financial transfers performed by the industry along with the product of the sale of recyclables on the other). To provide a verdict on the overall performance of any system is not straightforward. We are, however, able to underline several of the national best practices.