Packaging data reporter
A small system for any business that puts packaged goods on the market: the obligation established per item rather than assumed, weights sourced with the method recorded, the household split decided on evidence, and a submission that still makes sense seven years later. Seven posts on the same system, one diagram at a time, with a cost breakdown and an engineering reference at the end.
- 01
A packaging data reporter on AWS for a few dollars a month
The whole system on one page — obligation, weights, the household split and the submission — and why the split rather than the total is where the money is.
- 02
Whose packaging is it anyway
Deciding per item whether the reporting obligation attaches to you, under which activity, and how the turnover and tonnage thresholds set the regime.
- 03
Weighing what you cannot weigh
Sourcing a per-unit weight for every packaging component from supplier data, direct weighing or sampling, recording the method and date, and the errors that multiply.
- 04
Household or not, and why that field costs more than the rest of the file
Assigning each tonne to household or non-household on evidence about the buyer, the default that applies when there is none, and the nation split underneath it.
- 05
The submission, and the seven years behind it
Closing a reporting period: freezing the inputs, aggregating by material, nation and split, reconciling against the previous period, and assembling the evidence pack.
- 06
What the packaging data reporter costs
About $3 a month. One Bedrock read per specification is the only line that grows; the queue, the table, the mail and the storage are rounding errors. Plus the three ways the bill could surprise you.
- 07
Engineering reference: the packaging data reporter architecture
Same system, drawn purely for engineers. Service names, region, Lambda inventory, IAM scopes, the schemas and the exact model id.
Frequently asked questions
- Who has to report packaging data?
- Organisations above a turnover and a tonnage threshold that carry out one of a defined set of activities — owning the brand, filling the packaging, importing it filled, supplying it filled, or selling it to the end consumer. Making the box is not on the list.
- Why does household versus non-household matter so much?
- Because the disposal fees attach to household packaging. Two identical cases of the same product can carry very different costs depending on who bought them, and getting the split wrong is expensive in whichever direction it is wrong.
- We have thousands of lines. How is anyone supposed to weigh them?
- You are not. You use supplier data where it exists, weigh a representative sample where it does not, and record which method produced every figure. The method is what makes the number defensible, not the precision.
- How long do we have to keep the data?
- Seven years, and an auditor can ask for the working behind any line in it. The submission is a summary; the evidence is the deliverable.
- What does it cost to run?
- A few dollars a month. See part six.