What is the end of life stage
The end-of-life stage considers the environmental footprint that comes with the waste processing of the packaging product after use. Learn more about what we include in the EOL stage + why below:
Fill out your product's EOL
Add the region where you product will most likely end up in the waste treatment systems. Usually this is based on where you ship your product to/where your client's located (on average).
If unmapped: If the EOL location isn't mapped yet, you will do this after saving the product. Learn how.
If mapped: You can simply choose a location from the dropdown.
After saving the product + potentially mapping is complete. You Packaging Impact Report will show the EOl scenario based on every component you added and how these components are treated at the EOl in your EOL region:
Explaining: End of life for inventory products
Since inventory products represent real life products and can be shared as Impact Reports or in comparisons, greenwashing is a risk when we allow to change the end of life scenario.
Example:
Company A produces compostable packaging which are made of agricultural waste. Their impact drops when they are composted.
Currently however, there are is no waste treatment in place in Europe that allows for industrial composting.
It's therefore more likely that the waste will be incinerated instead, resulting in a slighly worse end of life.
Related articles
Custom end of life scenario
In Pickler, you can add your own End of life scenario. This can be helpful, when you know that the end of life of your product is different than from Pickler's default scenario.
With custom end of life scenario's, you can get a more accurate calculation of your product's environmental impact.
How it works and how we prevent greenwashing.
You can assign custom values on product level, by distributing it over the four end of life categories: incineration, landfill, composting and recycling. You can do this via API, CSV and the form.
When you submit your values (save the form or upload CSV), Pickler will store the values first and will then check if they can be applied.
What happens under the hood
Your values are stored.
Pickler checks if your values can be applied for every material.
If it can't be applied, that material will be skipped and the default end of life values remain.
For example: You entered 10% under composting. Your product has metal in it however. For this material, there is no composting scenario, meaning it can't be handled.
Pickler calculates the eco-costs of your new values and compares with the default eco-costs for your end of life.
Custom values will only be applied the new eco-costs is higher that the Pickler default. This means only downgrading is possible. The reason is that allowing a lower eco-cost, would require evidence. That's not in place yet in Pickler.
How do you enter new values
Via CSV
When you export the csv in Pickler (import&export > export product data) and open it, you will find a new column at the end. This column is where you can enter the distribution of end life per product.
Order is as follows: incineration, composting, recycling, landfill
You have to enter it using this format: 30;40;0;30 (this would mean 30% incineration, 40% composting, 0% recycling and 30% landfill) It has to contain four values otherwise it can't import.
When you leave the cell empty, nothing happens and the default end of life will apply.
Via form
In the form you will find a toggle under end of life. Clicking it opens a grid/table with all four end of life scenarios. These are empty by default (just like in the csv). Rules are the same: you enter the distribution like you want it and sum has to be 100.
So you entered data either via the form or the csv. We will first store your values and then check if we can apply the values.
