Resources

Everything here exists because a buyer asked the question and the answer was worth writing down properly. None of it is gated: the calculators show the result in full and the guides do not stop halfway to ask for an e-mail address.

Calculators

Six tools, all running in your browser, all showing the answer in full. The most used four — the rest are listed on the calculators page:

• Truck & pallet load — units per layer, pallets per 13.6 m trailer or 40 ft container, deck utilisation and whether the load fills on floor space or on weight.
• Stretch film cost per pallet — grams per pallet, cost per pallet, and the annual saving from raising the pre-stretch on the wrapper you already own.
• Bin liner size finder — bin in, EN 13592 width and length out, with the thickness and material the waste needs.
• Micron, gauge and mil converter — one scale, three units, and what the same figure means for a sack and for a film.

Guides

Long-form, technical, and specific to one decision: which sack gauge, cast or blown film, EPAL or one-way. Written to be used while filling in a specification sheet rather than read once. Every guide carries the date it was last reviewed, because a guide that states what the law is has to be visibly current or visibly stale.

• Bin liners & refuse sacks — sizes, microns, materials and EN 13592: everything that goes on a sack specification, and what each figure actually buys you.
• Euro pallets — EPAL, UIC 435-2, ISPM 15, and the three load figures that get confused with each other.
• Stretch film — cast against blown, hand against machine, and the pre-stretch setting that decides most of what you spend.

Standards

What each standard actually requires, in the terms a buyer needs rather than the terms the standard uses — and, more usefully, what each one leaves open.

• EN 13592 — waste sack sizes and test methods. It does not set a thickness, which is what most people assume it does.
• EN 13432 — compostable packaging. Industrial composting, not a garden heap.
• ISPM 15 — heat treatment for wood packaging. Mandatory, and the one that stops a consignment.
• EPAL and UIC 435-2 — what licences a pallet to carry the mark, and when that licence is worth paying for.

Compliance

PPWR has applied since 12 August 2026, with no grace period. This section covers what changed, what a Declaration of Conformity has to contain, and how EPR registration differs between Germany, the Netherlands and the other markets we ship to. Each country note names the register you deal with and the next deadline — and marks it plainly once that deadline has passed.

• PPWR — what changed on 12 August 2026 — what applies now, what arrives in 2028 and 2030, and the five questions to put to a supplier.
• The packaging Declaration of Conformity — what one must contain, who has to draw it up, and how to tell a real one from a supplier letter that looks like one.
• EPR for packaging — who counts as the producer, why transport packaging is treated differently, and what we register on your behalf and what we deliberately do not. With country pages for Germany and the Netherlands.

Glossary

Every term a packaging specification is likely to use, defined in the sense the trade actually uses it. Where a word means two different things in two product groups — gauge is the obvious one, meaning one thing on a sack and another on a film — both are given.

Insights

Technical comparisons, regulatory notes and the arithmetic behind packaging prices — LDPE against HDPE, cast against blown, and how a polyethylene quotation is actually built. Published when there is something worth saying.