The AGVU for the Protection of Resources

Packaging is necessary and useful. Many products, in particular foodstuffs, can not be stored, distributed or sold without packaging. The packaging not only protects the goods against damage and spoilage, but also effectively supports the processes of logistics and trade.

For 30 years, the AGVU has been committed to resource efficiency and product responsibility for packaging. Our association represents the entire value chain through its members: from the packaging industry to the consumer goods industry and commerce to the dual systems, disposal companies and recyclers.

Consumers in Germany are traditionally committed to environmental and resource protection and recycling. They have internalized that used packaging constitutes important secondary raw materials and must be preserved for the reusable material cycle. Consumers therefore support the existing household-related collection system because it citizen-oriented and offers the possibility to make an individual contribution to environmental and climate protection. The AGVU has made a crucial contribution to the development and expansion of this system.

The members of the AGVU have played an essential role in building today’s collection and recycling structures for packaging in Germany and maintaining the high recycling standards even in times of changing economic and political environments.

In the past, the AGVU has repeatedly argued that it could bundle and unify seemingly different opinions among the actors in the value chain. This has made the association a sought-after speaking partner in the area of environmental and consumer protection of politics, administration and NGOs. Because the members come from many different sectors, the AGVU is equipped with a broad basis of practical experience.

The AGVU, in dialogue with its members, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders, aims to achieve the following objectives:

• Producers, bottlers, traders, waste disposal companies and recyclers assume responsibility for an environmentally sound and resource-protective use and recycling of packaging in a competitive framework.
• Consumers are enabled with information and the provision of suitable collecting systems to make their own contribution to environment and resource protection with packaging.
• The political and economic framework conditions of packaging recycling should be designed in such a way that consumers are not additionally financially burdened. This also implies that all the obligated parties make their financial contribution in a transparent and legally sound environment.