Retail waste is high volume, highly segregated and increasingly reported on. The packaging spend is small next to the reporting burden it creates, which is why the data that ships with the goods matters as much as the goods.
What you buy
| Product | Typical specification | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Compactor sacks | 80–125 µm, 860 × 1170 mm | back-of-house compactor |
| Heavy duty sacks | 50–60 µm | general store waste |
| Clear sacks | 30–40 µm | segregated recycling |
| Wheelie bin liners | 50 µm, 240 L / 1100 L | yard |
| Stretch film | 17–20 µm machine | depot palletising |
Specifications, pack quantities and minimum orders for each: bin liners, stretch film, pallets, cling film.
Compactor and baler sacks
The single most common specification error in retail is ordering a compactor sack to fit the bin rather than to fit the machine. A compactor sack is sized to the chamber and to the throw of the ram; too small and it splits on the first compression, too large and it folds into the mechanism.
Gauge for compaction is 80–125 µm, well above general waste, because the film is compressed against sharp edges rather than simply loaded. If your current sacks fail in the machine rather than on the way to it, gauge is where to look first.
Printed sacks and own-brand film
Where a retail group wants its own name or its own colour scheme on the consumable, the print goes on the sack or the film. What we produce:
- printed refuse sacks, flexo up to four colours, on LDPE or recycled content
- colour-coded sacks matched to a group’s own waste-stream scheme
- printed stretch film for loads that leave the estate
Minimums are 500 kg per design and colour on sacks and one pallet on film. Plate cost is quoted separately and once — see private label & OEM.
The EPR reporting burden
If you place packaging on the market — and a retailer with own-brand goods does — you report by material and by weight to the scheme in each country you sell in. Germany’s LUCID register and the Netherlands’ scheme both work this way.
Reconstructing weights from invoices at quarter end is a week of somebody’s time. We supply, with every order:
- packaging weight by material, per unit and per pallet
- material composition and recycled content statement
- signed Declaration of Conformity per packaging type
See EPR packaging by country for how the German and Dutch schemes differ.
Consolidation across a store estate
Retail groups typically buy sacks through a cleaning contract, film through the depot and pallets through logistics. Three accounts, three sets of terms, three deliveries.
Where a group runs a central depot, a mixed full trailer against a quarterly price is materially cheaper than four part-loads, and the EPR data arrives in one format instead of three.
Common mistakes
- Compactor sacks sized to the bin. See above; it is the expensive one.
- Buying sacks on price per case without checking the count. Two suppliers quoting the same price per case can differ by fifty sacks inside it.
- Treating EPR data as an afterthought. Ask for it with the delivery note.