Live at SPC Impact with Olga Kachook 2026 Trends Report

 In this special live episode recorded at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee during the Sustainable Packaging Coalition Impact Event, Cory Connors shares the stage with Olga Kachook to present the Third Annual Sustainable Packaging Trends Report for 2025–2026. Olga walks through the four key trends shaping the industry and dives deeper into each one in conversation with Cory, covering everything from EPR maturity to innovation in healthcare packaging.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Regions defining recyclability — Canada, the UK, and the EU leading the way and what that means for the US
• Innovation breakthroughs in OTC and healthcare packaging, including paper prescription bottles
• EPR turning five — progress made and challenges that remain
• Shared data driving recyclability clarity, including the upgrade of polypropylene cold cups under the How to Recycle program
• Designing for EPR — setting your own certainty in the face of regulatory uncertainty
• The "magic wand" thought experiment: how would you design your packaging portfolio if starting fresh today?
• Coated paper and molded fiber as focus areas for the SPC's paper recyclability collaborative
• The role of AI sorting technology in generating better recycling data
• Reusable e-commerce as an emerging opportunity — FedEx and Returnity's B2B partnership
• Predictions for the 2027 Trends Report, including consumer education and infrastructure expansion in EPR states
• Cabinet Health's refillable OTC packaging model, available at Target and Amazon

Resources Mentioned:

• Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) 
• SPC Paper Recyclability Collaborative
• How to Recycle Program
• Cabinet Health — refillable OTC packaging
• NextGen Consortium
• Returnity Reusable Shipping

Contact: For more information on the SPC Trends Report, scan the QR code mentioned in the episode or visit sustainablepackaging.org.

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Transcript

0:06

Today's episode is a first of its kind. We recorded live from the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee at the Sustainable Packaging Coalition Impact Event. It truly was an honor to share the stage with my friend, the amazing Olga Kachook, where she presented the 2026 Third Annual Sustainable Packaging Trends Report. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any episodes. I'd also like to thank our sponsors, 3M, Specright and Forest. We couldn't do this show without you Welcome to the Sustainable Packaging Podcast with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. If any of you have heard that, raise your hand and I thank you for subscribing to my podcast. Today we're gonna do a podcast of this presentation. Olga is the star of the show and we will be presenting the Trends Report for 2026 or 2025 to 2026. And this is the third annual uh Olga is the director of the SPC and one of the most impressive people in this industry. If you haven't talked to her, her side and say thank you for the work that you do. But we're going to start by her presenting and then I'll sit her down and we'll ask some questions kind of diving deeper into each trend. So, Olga, to you. Well, first of all, Cory, thanks for joining me on stage for this. The Trends Report, like Cory mentioned, this is our third annual. And it's a really fun time for us. It's a fun project that I get to work on. And I think of it as uh kind of like our breach moment for the packaging industry. So if you remember planet Earth episodes, you'll know that breaching is when whales jump up out of the water, and dolphins do this as well. They'll follow boats sometimes. And it's interesting. Why does a 200-ton mammal heave itself out of the water? So fun fact, scientists don't actually know, which I love. I love that there's still some mystery about this. But in the case of dolphins, they're jumping up out of the water to stay in touch. to go faster, to gather food, to socialize. Those all sound like very dolphin things, right? Sounds right. In the case of whales, it's to communicate, to claim territory. This is a fun one, to remove parasites from their bodies and for social interaction. And since we don't actually know definitively why they're jumping up out of the water, I'd like to offer my own theory, which is that maybe they're jumping up out of the water to see What is this thing called ocean that we've been swimming in? What the heck is this? What is this water? Where are we? And that's why I think it's kind of our breach moment. It's the Trends Report and taking a step back is our opportunity to leap up out of the water, get away from our desks, get some perspective, think about the world around us, maybe shake off some parasites, have a little bit of fun. Here we go, that's what we're gonna do. uh As Cory mentioned, we've been doing this for three years now. We have a couple of different areas that we align the trends to, so we're just gonna get right into it. I'll share some of the rationale for our trends and then we'll talk about it. So in packaging design, what we're seeing is regions defining recyclability. So maybe you caught this at the end of, actually it was the middle of last year, five Canadian PROs came together to define recyclability guidelines across all of Canada and eco modulation eco design guidelines. We're starting to see similar. Well, actually the UK is ahead of them in the sense that they have something called the RAM recyclability assessment methodology. It outlines color coded assessments of recyclability by material class. And then of course the EU with PPWR similar story not yet available, but they're working on design for recycling criteria due by 2028. So just two years away. And this begs the natural question, is the US next? We have seven states, one PRO. Hopefully there's an opportunity at one point to harmonize and have one accepted material list, one standard list of what we consider recyclable. So we're working towards that. uh And the even bigger opportunity there is once we have some standardization in regions, can work as, that gives companies a lot of opportunity to start designing. for lowest common denominators, the similarities across regions. So that's packaging design. Over on the innovation side, we are finally starting to see some really cool innovations and breakthroughs uh for health care and OTC packaging. And this is an area that historically hasn't had a lot of innovation. And for good reason, there's requirements from the FDA. You have to do child seal, tamper, evident seals. child safety, drug facts, all sorts of additional requirements on this category, but they're starting to break through. And it really matters because we're here tomorrow on the main stage. Systemic put out a report and they're gonna talk about it. Just how much plastic waste is going to landfills from the healthcare sector alone. And prescription pill bottles are a massive, completely untapped opportunity that no one has touched. And finally, we're starting to see the image you have here, innovations like paper prescription bottles. So that's huge, and I think we're going to see more of that. Over in policy, what to say except that EPR had a birthday this year. EPR turned five, and while it might not feel like we're making big progress, I think it's worth remembering that, yeah, five years ago, EPR was, you we heard some of the discussion earlier. It was, It was theoretical, was a kind of what if, you we didn't really think it might pass. And we've gone a long way in five years. Now we're at the point where we can confidently list the things that are challenges, and we heard that on the stage. We have a sort of list of the known unknowns, to quote Donald Trump, which I didn't think I would ever do. But you know, we know that, for example, there's a lack of harmonization. We know that... the enforcement mechanisms haven't necessarily been laid out. And that might not feel like a win, but really it's a huge amount of progress to have made in five years. So we're seeing EPR maturing in what hopefully feels like a productive way. And then last but not least, uh shared data on the recovery side, shared data helping to create recyclability clarity. So EPR programs are of course, laser focused on recycling rates and as a result brands and converters and industry groups are coming together to say what do we know about true on the ground recycling rates for specific categories moving kind of out of the theoretical, out of the philosophical of you know well technically it can be recyclable. And the big sort of success story for this that we saw in the past year is what we call the the cup grid. at Green Blue, the upgrade of polypropylene cold cups to widely recycled, widely recycled under the How to Recycle program. And how did that happen? It happened because of waste management making key upgrades at their facilities, but also groups like TRP, How to Recycle, the NextGen Consortium, uh key industry players coming together to share data and share what they know about the true on the ground recyclability of cups. And I think there's a real sort of pathway here that we can copy and leverage for some other formats. So I hope that this is certainly a trend that everyone here thinks about how they can kind of participate in and contribute to, because it really is a group effort to prove recyclability. And I know we'll talk about that a little bit. So I went quite quickly. We have the Trends Report launching today. As I mentioned, the four trends, regions defining recyclability, innovation in OTC and health care packaging, EPR maturing, turning five, and then the shared data in the recovery space. So you can scan the QR code to download the report. And yeah, Cory, just excited to talk more about them with you. Hey friends, we are going to take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Please be sure to support them. Are you shipping with recycled corrugated? Think outside the box with 3M tape. 3M packaging tape can help you overcome your recycled corrugated challenges with confidence, making sure your boxes are sealed securely the first time, reducing downtime, and providing consistent performance. With 3M as your partner, you can maintain productivity, achieve cost savings, and turn packaging problems into ceiling success. When you use recycled corrugated shipping boxes, think 3M packaging. Sustainability starts long before a product hits the shelf. It starts with the spec. 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This is a big deal. and I know there's a lot of complaints about there's a lack of consistency or. connection between these reports and the EPR laws. But I think we'll get there. But I think a lot of these people work for global companies. And we're not at national or even regional harmonization for recyclability guidelines. So a lot of people come to us with these questions. What kind of a strategy would you recommend they use today before we start to harmonize? I would say leaning into the common denominators and the themes that we can very clearly pick up on from the different regions and the EPR programs. The signals, I saw an article recently talking about the market signals that EPR fees are telling you. So there's some really clear kind of themes. Simple formats, simple materials over complex materials. There's kind of that natural trade off. Mono materials as opposed to a lot of complexity. Reduction of the number of components and the number of elements. Certain materials or formats like bottles tending to fare better when it comes to recyclability. Size as a factor, so small items. you know, typically below two inches being an issue really across regions. Like we knew all of these things were recyclability challenges and now we just have kind of the the EPR fees to prove it if you will that you know that that's what we need to redesign and I loved Jeff's point earlier about the opportunity that he sees the untapped potential for companies to redesign. I know everyone is laser focused right now on reporting and data but really the the big next opportunity is going to be redesigning so that potentially you're reporting on fewer SKUs or paying lower fees. It's a simple concept, but it's a very grand mindset that I think we need to look at today. Mono materials, recyclability. If your parents would know what to do with it, it's probably easier to handle. It's probably recyclable. uh I think that's something to think about because we're dealing with multiple generations in this, you know, United States that need to know how to handle these products after they've used them. And so I think about that a lot from the consumer's perspective. But what products do you think have kind of more potential for over-the-counter and healthcare packaging? You mentioned paper bottles. This is an incredible innovation, just very recent. And I've been laughed at by this comment before, but I'd love to see reusable packaging in health care packaging. Is that possible? Yeah, so that systemic report that I mentioned, they talk about all sorts of solutions for health care. I don't think it's funny. I would love to use, instead of those paper gowns in hospitals, man, those suck. If they could just get some reusable textiles in the health care setting, I think that would go a long way to sort of, you know, elevating the hospital experience. so things like that, that's one of the solutions that they highlight in the report that there's some real cost savings there actually when you scale that solution across a hospital system and think about, if, well anyway, it's complex. I don't wanna underestimate the unique challenges that the healthcare setting has because things like biohazards and sharps and all of that. But they've outlined the systemic report really is fantastic for outlining some of those key opportunities. And then you mentioned OTC. Talk about a standard format, like the Tylenol bottle. Everyone has one. And it is literally the exact same bottle. There's no differentiation of the Tylenol bottle. So what are the opportunities? I mean, think refill naturally comes to mind. And it's already being done by. a company that we mentioned in the report called Cabinet Health. So they offer some really nice sleek kind of durable containers and then refill pouches sold already at Target and Amazon with your allergy meds, your Tylenol, et cetera. You just pour it back into the bottle. Because yeah, the stuff you're going through it quite quickly and the formats are pretty standardized as is. So there's opportunities there. Well, those pill bottles are so indestructible. We've reused those for years. Who hasn't put something other than pills into one of those to save it for later, to use it again, batteries or something like that to make sure it's waterproof or drop resistant, whatever the case may be. But there's a lot of people in here. Any engineers or packaging designers in the room? So these are the people we need to help with the future of packaging. Any advice for them on how they can kind of design for EPR and kind of be ahead of that game? Because I know their companies are going to say, did you learn at this conference? Well, we talk about it a little bit in the report and we'll talk about it tomorrow on the main stage. But one thing that I think it can sound a little hopelessly naive, but at the same time, it's at least an interesting thought experiment, which is the idea that OK, there's a lot of uncertainty when it comes to EPR implementation and some of the enforcement mechanisms and exactly what is required, what's de minimis, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of rabbit holes you can go down. And the thought experiment I'd like to offer is this. What if you set your own certainty? What if you decided, we're going to take sort of an approach that assumes that yes, even the smallest, most annoying components that we are kind of hoping might not have to be reported on, what if we determined and set for ourselves the certainty that I think they are included? I think we do need to source reduce them. So there's ways to, you know, and in some cases you're maybe making it more hard, more difficult for yourself, but at the same time, when California, if California comes around and says, hey, guess what? You know, that thing that you thought wasn't included is actually included, you're going to be ahead of the game. Because you thought it through and you sort of elevated the requirements for yourself just in case. And in that setting, you actually came out ahead. So there's this idea that I've been playing with. I didn't come up with it. I heard it from a uh brand over on the European side. We'll you the credit. When I was at the Sustainable Packaging Summit. And I feel like the Europeans are usually onto something. And she was talking about this idea of setting your own certainty in the face of uncertainty, kind of calling it and moving forward. And I think it goes a little bit to what Paul was saying about, you know, taking some action instead of sitting in the unknown and not being able to move forward, not setting a strategy, really thinking through how can I set some certainty for myself? And then the other thought experiment that I just kind of recently came up with that I think could be an interesting one, again, for folks to try on is how would you design your packaging portfolio if you started fresh today? If you didn't have all the baggage of how it was designed five years ago or 10 years ago, if you were kind of playing God with your packaging portfolio, knowing what you know about EPR fees and about PCR mandates and about all of the requirements that have come at you recently with unpack labeling and proving recycling rates, how would you design your portfolio? And is there an opportunity, in some case that's a fictional portfolio, it doesn't exist, but is there a way to move a little bit closer to that and have that feeling of starting fresh given what we know now? as opposed to kind of retroactively trying to pull your portfolio in with the times, you know what I mean? It's the magic wand concept. Yeah, if I could start over, I'd love that idea. And I think that's a concept for a packaging team to get together and say, for an hour a week, get together and say, what if we could do that? How could we totally reinvent this thing? And I think that would could potentially have a huge impact at a lot of places. Because I know some companies who have done that, and they've had a lot of success. Yeah, and I would say engineers, maybe they're feeling like, that's not our strong suit. Bring in the creatives and have it be a team effort where, at the very least, it's a really interesting exercise that I think will lead to some innovation. Yeah, exactly. Well, you mentioned the cup grade of the polypropylene cups. And know Michelle Carvel always talks about data. Data is the key to success here. And because we found that there was enough of these cups getting recycled, you were able to upgrade them to a better recyclability rating. Are there any other materials or packaging items that could benefit from that kind of data? So many. All of them. All of them need better data. But the one, the two that we're laser focused on at the SPC right now as a result of 343. Hopefully you've been on a collaborative call or have seen an email about this, is coated paper and molded fiber. So if you work in that space, if you have packaging that you have done flow testing on, that you've talked to MRFs about, that you have data on how it's performing in MRFs, please come to us and at least have a conversation about what you've learned in this process. Hopefully you can share some of the data. Because we are, speaking of cup grades, there's also down grades, which is when certain formats that we once thought or kind of all assumed were recyclable, now we have to go back and do a little bit of showing our homework to prove that, in fact, it is getting sorted. It is getting collected. There are end markets. So we've taken this on as part of the SPC's paper recyclability collaborative. uh My coworker Brad has been leading that work. And if you haven't talked to him about it, if you didn't know that we were working on that, this is my kind of main plug in order to then eventually feed the data over onto the how to recycle side, share it with CalRecycle, and hopefully see an upgrade back into widely recyclable for a couple of those other categories. yeah, think uh fiber often gets a bit of a. in the sense that we just assume, of course, we'll be able to process it. And so now we're at that point where we have to backtrack and show some of our work, show some of the data. And I think with the onset of AI sorting technology, we're going to have a lot more data, which will help us all. Or it could kind of thought check some of us, like, hey, maybe that material isn't the best. Maybe we could change to this, or maybe it needs to be three inches wide instead of two and a half or whatever the case may be. I'm excited personally about some of that because I've had my own thoughts and I know we all kind of think that what we're doing is really helpful and very beneficial, but it will be nice to know for sure. I'm excited to see. thinking ahead, this is the third annual. For the fourth annual, do you have any big predictions for trends coming up? Is AI going to take over and put us all out of work? I don't think so. think what we'll see is progress on a couple of fronts. I if I had to guess, we'll start to, as Jeff was saying, start to see some of the payoff of expanded infrastructure in EPR states, particularly Oregon. We might have some cool numbers or data and just more of a sense of how do we channel funds into infrastructure to then quickly be able to accept more? Because right now it's a total chicken and egg of there aren't the recycling rates to get it to have the widely recycled label, and that's because there's no infrastructure. So we have to break that loop, but I think we'll get there. And EPR funds are critical for the infrastructure and for the collection programs. I'm hoping that next year we can come up here and tell you about consumer education work that you've helped us fund. We'll talk a little bit more about that on the main stage tomorrow, but there's so much work that needs to go into helping consumers understand, for example, how to read the how to recycle label and what to do with it, and also the importance of recycling or composting. And there's plenty of education that we need to do on the refill side as well. So I'm hoping that we'll have some some cool case studies or success stories on the consumer education front. This one is going to sound really specific, but I think I think I could call it now. I think we're going to have a couple of additional case studies on reusable e-commerce. So if anyone followed some of the news around FedEx partnering with returnity reusable shipping. for B2B purchases and shipments, I think there's gonna be more of that to come because that secondary packaging is, I don't wanna call it low-hanging fruit because it's not necessarily easy, but it is ripe for the conversion to reuse. And there's a lot of work that's been done to fine tune the offerings and get it to cost parity with single-use cardboard. So between those, And what we've seen for a number of years is the paparization trend continuing. We saw that actually in the health care and OTC space, right, with that paper bottle. So who knows? Paper might be coming for another category that we just assumed there would never be a paper solution for. And we might be able to kind of report back on that. We saw paper wine bottles in the Frugal Pack as a booth. That's something I never thought I would see in this industry. And it's incredible. working. So thank you all for listening. Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast, Sustainable Packaging Podcast. Olga, a round of applause for Olga, please. Thank you so much. Thanks, Cory.