Packaging Solutions: Why Reducing Plastic And Packaging Waste Matters When companies look for packaging solutions for their products, they want safe and secure options. Faced with growing public concerns for health and the environment, many companies also opt to choose a packaging supplier who’s concerned about plastics and about reducing packaging waste.
Over the past few years, concerns about plastics have grown, even as the use of plastic products has increased.
While plastic is practical and essential, its ubiquitous use means that it’s become dangerous. When exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light in landfills and the environment generally, the chemical compounds in plastics break down and leach out.
Some of these chemicals, like phthalates, are toxic. Since micro-particles of plastic have been found in drinking water, this is a huge public health concern.
Plastics are dangerous to wildlife too, on land, and especially in oceans around the world.
Today, companies want sustainable and eco-friendly packaging solutions, which reduce both plastics and packaging waste. Let’s look at why that’s important.
Why is it important to develop better packaging solutions?
Today, public awareness demands that companies reduce the use of plastics and also reduce packaging waste.
Plastics hit public awareness in a big way when people became aware of the dangers inherent in microbeads used in cosmetic products. While these tiny beads, just 0.5 to 500 micrometres in diameter, have medical uses particularly in treating cancer, suddenly they arrived in everyday grooming products. Some European countries banned their use in cosmetics; Greenpeace referred to them as a “toxic time bomb.”
In regard to packaging waste, consumers decry “over-packaging” in supermarkets, particularly in fruit and vegetables. They decry over-packaging in many products because it’s wasteful and expensive. Moreover, much of the over-packaging waste can’t or won’t be recycled, so it ends up in landfills.
Many companies are aware of the need to reduce packaging waste and are actively searching for better packaging solutions.
Let’s look at the reasons for reducing plastics and packaging waste in more detail.
1. Consumers want improved plastics’ recycling and better packaging solutions
The Australian government has responded to consumer concerns. On its environment.gov.au website, it reports that it’s actively encouraging both the recycling of plastics, as well as improved packaging solutions to reduce packaging waste. Estimates suggest that currently, just 14 per cent of plastics are recycled.
The government’s 1999 Australian Packaging Covenant aims that by 2025 fully 100 per cent “of Australian packaging be recyclable, compostable or reusable.”
The recent COVID-19 concerns will impact packaging solutions, because while shoppers are buying more products online, they’re nevertheless still aware of wasteful packaging.
2. Reducing packaging waste offers cost benefits for companies
You want safety and security for your products, but you also want to minimize packaging to cut down on waste.
Improved packaging solutions, with less packaging waste, can offer cost benefits too.
How much could you save if you reduced your packaging? You could save not only in the cost of the packaging, you could also save on shipping costs. It’s worth assessing your packaging processes and experimenting.
When you’re looking at packaging solutions, remember sustainability. With innovations and new processes, you may be able to avoid package fillers like packing peanuts: carton fittings can hold products safely and securely without the need for fillers.
It’s worth looking at biodegradable packaging, like uncoated cardboard, too. Microorganisms in soil will break down the fibres, especially if the cardboard is shredded to make mulch, or if it’s compostable.
3. The increased use of plastics is dangerous to human health and the environment
Concern about the over-use and increasing production of plastics has grown over the past decade, particularly as fears over health and the environment have developed.
If plastics are dangerous, does that mean we need to give them up? That’s unlikely and may not be necessary.
Here’s the big challenge: plastics are almost indestructible. Even a thin plastic shopping bag takes 50 years to break down. Thicker plastics take hundreds of years.
Let’s look at some of the dangers posed by plastics:
- Plastics can release harmful chemicals. Although nominally safe in food containers, plastic containers and plastic water bottles release harmful chemicals into the atmosphere and ground water as they degrade over time;
- Sadly, plastics affect groundwater and marine environments, like lakes, rivers, and oceans. Researchers continue to show contamination of these environments, via toxic chemicals, as well as microbeads and other tiny forms of plastics, when large plastics break down;
- Reports have suggested that around 300 marine species ingest tiny plastics and this adds micro plastics to the food chain. Scientists can’t predict the effects on humans when they eat contaminated fish;
- Plastics-contamination leads to wildlife destruction both on land and in the oceans.
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