Dear Stefano, I’m writing to you…

The letter from Ucima director Gian Paolo Crasta: words addressed to the founder of ItaliaImballaggio, who would surely have responded with his usual wit and charm

Dear Stefano, I’m writing to you…

With this issue, we close a very tough 2025 for us. As our loyal readers know, on April 25 the founder of the magazine, Stefano Lavorini, passed away: a true point of reference on a professional level and, even more so, on a human one.
Fortunately, his lessons continue to guide the daily work of the editorial team: the magazine and the digital platform provide timely and precise information to industry professionals, with particular attention to the human and cultural stories that animate the entire sector.
Below, we publish a letter from Ucima’s director, Gian Paolo Crasta: words addressed to Stefano, who would surely have responded with his usual wit and warmth. It is the beginning of a dialogue that ItaliaImballaggio will continue to ‘weave’ with its founder.

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living” (Cicero)

Dear Stefano, I’m writing to you… just to take my mind off things a little.

Since you left, something quite remarkable has happened.
The packaging supply chain has become pop: it’s on TV, everywhere in podcasts, and don’t even get me started on Instagram and LinkedIn.
In the historic palaces of Rome and the sleek offices of Brussels, the word packaging fills many (perhaps too many) conversations and, now that the table is set and fully laid out, everyone wants to sit down and have their say.

It’s good that people are talking about it, don’t get me wrong.
It’s excellent that it shows up in the analyses and documents that describe it.
But, as often happens in moments of collective intoxication, I fear we may risk losing sight of essential parts of our supply chain along the way.

Just imagine, Stefano: packaging is now so well “understood” that Europe has approved a law (elegantly called a regulation) that – only thanks to our activism, and when I say “our” I mean, for once and with a positive connotation, Italy’s political, business, and manufacturing representatives – we managed to prevent from becoming the sad swan song of the entire packaging galaxy.

So is everything fine, then? Not quite.
Strong words were spoken but, evidently, not strong enough if we have now reached the stage of drafting the implementing decrees.

That packaging – together with the collection and recycling supply chains – has created in Italy the most virtuous circular economy system in Europe and perhaps in the world is an incontrovertible fact.
Apparently not for those who wrote the regulation, though. Hidden between the lines of the law, one still finds a stubborn insistence on replacing recycling with reuse.

Too bad that recycled raw materials now cost more than virgin ones.
Which means the cost-effectiveness of sustainable packaging is starting to waver.

Finally, despite the countless pages of studies showing that packaging waste accounts for only a minimal share of total emissions, it is still treated as one of the sworn enemies of the environment.
I suppose it’s more convenient to blame packaging than AI, smartphones, and the servers storing all our memories, things we can no longer live without.
But, then again, we can’t live without packaged products either.

So, dear Stefano…
The year that’s coming will, in a year, be gone. But we are preparing for it.
And that is the real news.