A Brighter Tomorrow: How Sustainable Packaging Can Help Us Reach Our Goals

As mentalities are fast changing and facing new challenges and new consuming habits, Raconteur | B Corp? , an independent publication of The Times , has just set a full report on the future of packaging. It summarizes how consumers are being aware of their impact on the environment, but also how industrials are facing these changes by inventing new ways to overcome the problem of material shortage, inflation or material price rises and how the UK government pushes them to find new solutions to fight against packaging waste and introduce circularity of the supply chains and environmentally friendly packaging as a response to it.

The pandemic has increased online purchasing, and along with it, the consumption of e-commerce packaging. Concern over package use in general, and particularly single-use packaging, is expanding. In this context, the packaging is bearing a higher responsibility and Raconteur introduces how industries from various horizons face the new challenges ahead to make their packaging more sustainable. On the one hand, in the paper and corrugated packaging industry, the primary difficulties center on durability whereas in the past they were trying to make their packaging more aesthetic mixing different types of materials in them (eg: plastic lamination to make the packaging moisture resistant). ?However, the focus right now is on keeping costs low and avoiding using different materials. On the other hand, advances in the integration of RFID technology are also widely used to track and trace packaging and prevent anticounterfeiting in order to promote client engagement. Other innovations are also considered in order to drive inclusivity for disabled persons and improve human experience, for example with braille printing or temperature sensors on the packaging.

In the tin-plated steel packaging industry, they are focusing on their image of premium quality and the high level of recycling of the material.

Despite its negative reputation, plastics continue to play a significant role in the UK's economy. The goal to substantially increase plastics’ recycling rates is a noble one, but this is far from being the only way to increase the sustainability of the material.

In reality, there are numerous approaches to reduce carbon emissions associated with plastics.

One way could be to increase recycling after use, and this can be achieved either by mechanical recycling or chemical recycling. The other way to decrease plastics packaging emissions is to make it more durable. The application of a circular model can help with it. In this article, Corplex CEO Lucas van der Schalk tries to demonstrate how simple it may be to switch from single-use plastic packaging to reusable plastic packaging in order to prevent materials losses or packaging that ends up in the trash after use. In fact, when used more than six times, reusable plastic packaging outperforms its cardboard equivalent due to its extended lifespan.

In this context, it is obvious that even if many aspects are to be considered in this changing era, there is still an important point to be taken into consideration which is to choose the most sustainable packaging as possible for the dedicated application. Oftentimes, this most environmentally friendly packaging is created from plastics.

Written by Anne K. | Article also published on Corplex' blog

View the Raconteur "Futur of Packaging" full report here