In December of 1994, the European Union issued the Directive on
Packaging and Packaging Waste. This Directive aims to harmonise
national measures in order to prevent or reduce the impact of
packaging and packaging waste on the environment and to ensure
the functioning of the Internal Market. It contains provisions
on the prevention of packaging waste, on the re-use of packaging
and on the recovery and recycling of packaging waste. Each
Member State is obligated to adopt measures to meet the
requirements set out by the Packaging Directive. To meet the
requirements of this legislation, manufacturers, importers, and
distributors must either: A. Develop and implement their own
take-back schemes for their product B. Join non-profit
associations, such as the Green Dot program, that are
established to organise the collection, sorting, and recycling
of used sales packaging. Green Dot is currently the standard
take-back program in 21 European countries. The Green Dot system
is the only initiative that is attempting to