And again – compliance ain’t hard, but it needs to be considered. I wonder whether packaging manufacturers ought to be doing more to advise their customers. After all, they live in the industry, while the poor product manufacturer is focused on his own business. For example, GHD, the hair straightener people, were fined £9000. They may legitimately have thought that the packaging for their product was in fact part of the product. Sometimes the only place to test this is in court, and it will become easier once the new definitions are in place in Europe, but in the meantime, I wouldn’t want to be the salesman facing his customer the weeka fter he’d been hauled up before the beak (Martin)

The legal and financial risks of failing to comply with packaging regulations was again underlined yesterday, when a major shoe retailer became the latest high profile firm to be hit with a fine for breaching waste rules.Brantano – a footwear retailer with 147 stores in the UK – has been ordered to pay over £30,000 after it pleaded guilty to 15 charges related to not registering with the Environment Agency and not meeting its packaging waste requirements under the Producer Responsibility Obligations Packaging Waste Regulations 1997, 2005 and 2007.

via Shoe firm steps right into packaging fine – 13 Jan 2010 – BusinessGreen.com.