Finnish Packaging Recycling Rinki Oy
Finnish Packaging Recycling RINKI Oy is a non-profit service company owned by the Finnish industry and trade associations, to which importers of packaged products and companies packaging in Finland report annually on the use of their packaging materials. Around 4500 companies have joined the system.
An important part of the circular economy - an efficient reporting system for packaging material declarations
Mediasignal was a partner of Rinki when the browser-based information system for reporting on the packaging materials used by companies was redesigned in 2020, with the aim of creating an easy-to-use and efficient solution that would enable Rinki to communicate with its customers and facilitate reporting and work organisation. For the authorities, access and reporting must meet the requirements of the legislation. The development needs were collected from Rinki’s experts and customers.
– “For such an important service to work as a daily tool, ease of use must be built into all functions. We eliminated typical user problems related to passwords, error messages and other extra work. The forms also need to guide the user in a logical way,” says Maija Peltola, customer service manager at Rinki, and Marko Kujala, managing director of Mediasignal.
Ville Paloniemi, System Manager at Rinki, who drafted the specifications, emphasises the solution’s fault tolerance and scalability.
– “A big spike will come early in the year when companies report their packaging material consumption from the previous year. The service will have to adapt to this and operate smoothly,” he says.
The development of the service will continue with Rinki and Mediasignal working together. The fact that reporting can be done in three languages – Finnish, Swedish or English – is already a source of satisfaction.
– “Companies are becoming more international, so we cannot expect either of the two languages to be the native language of the user“.
Producer responsibility for packaging and the associated reporting obligation applies to companies with a turnover of at least €1 million. In the future, the turnover threshold should be abolished altogether. This is another reason why it is important to have a reporting system that is as user-friendly as possible, user-guided and adaptable to changes in the reporting requirements of the legislation. The new system provides a good opportunity to do this.
