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what my passion is and was, and somebody pays me for it.’
Having secured a safe career path as an apprentice engineer in
Glasgow, he was playing in bands in his spare time. When he
was finally offered a full-time position in a band, his mother did
not stop him, encouraging him to ‘follow his heart’. The rest is
history.
Midge Ure’s parting message was a simple truth|: ‘Giving is the
thing, but what you get back is phenomenal.’
Closing the formal proceedings of the FINAT Congress,
President Kurt Walker thanked the organising team, led by
Congress Programme Committee chairman Noel Mitchell, and
the translators, welcomed the new Greek Label Association,
and reiterated the key messages of the event. Thomas
Hagmaier, on behalf of the German label association VskE,
invited delegates to next year’s Congress, to be held 12-15 June
in Munich.
Kurt Walker, tesa Bandfix, outlined the long tradition and
considerable achievements in the waste management arena in
Switzerland, where there has been absolutely no landfill for
the last 25 years, and waste is taxed by weight. The majority
of both consumer and industrial waste – glass, paper, metal,
batteries – is separated for collection nationwide and recycling
via incineration to create energy or for cement manufacture.
A significant advance in this area has been achieved by major
label printers in Switzerland, who, explained Mr Walker, have
together created a ‘map route’ of their customers in the
country’s industrial areas, for collection by logistics and
support partners C4G for recycling. ‘We are now establishing
a collecting route around large label users which will also allow
smaller printers to participate in the scheme’, Mr Walker
added. Comments from the floor in relation to this project
indicated a belief that, for liner recycling, brand owners and
retailers are simply ‘not interested’ in participation in such
schemes – a major challenge because, as Mr Walker,
emphasised, the importance of achieving commercially-viable
volumes of waste deliveries to the recycling companies, if they
are to survive.
Matthias Walter, GEWA Etiketten, introduced the Ökoprofit
initiative – Okologisches Projekt für Umwelt-Technik –
developed in Germany in 1991 and now used in 19 countries on
four continents. This government-supported ecological
project for integrated environmental protection has assisted
the company significantly in achieving production and material
efficiencies that have also delivered energy consumption
savings of around 10,000 a year. Resultant overall waste
reductions have been in the region of 10% for wet glue, and
50% for self-adhesive labels.
For Paragon Labels, Tony Lennon enumerated some baseline
activities within the company: the re-use of suppliers’ roll
cores in a cut-down form for customer deliveries of rolls of
printed labels, and the use of a plastic mesh to receive matrix
waste upwind.
THE
BAND
AID
/
LIVE
AID
EXPERIENCE
The sustainability agenda has many facets – but the sheer joy
of being able to do something for the good of others must rate
very highly. It certainly did with Midge Ure and Bob Geldof,
whose song ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ was to kick-start
Band Aid and its follow-ups in fund-raising for famine relief in
Ethiopia. Awarded the honour of an OBE – Order of the
British Empire -- for services to charity and music, he is also
currently an Ambassador for the Save the Children Fund.
Midge Ure was in Athens to inspire FINAT members with his
own story. ‘I have the best job in the world,’ he said. ‘I do
48
FINAT YEARBOOK
2013
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