Use Less Packaging? A Group of Brits say “Duh”

Let’s face it, packaging and shipping products presents some serious challenges for the planet. For instance, if you’ve ever had a helluva time opening a CD case, you’ll appreciate Consumer Reports Clam Awards honoring the most difficult package to open. Or take the vast mounds of waste resulting from packaging. To address this unseemly issue, environmental advocacy group Green Voice has released this rocking video along with a call to sign a petition against excess packaging.

But it’s not like solutions don’t exist. Two of our favorite companies have been packaging creatively for years. Terracycle, deriving fertilizer from worm poop, pays consumers to recycle used drink pouches, cookie and candy wrappers, and plastic bottles to be used for product packaging. And then there's organic beauty company Pangaea whose products come in 100% post-consumer, biodegradable, and, yes, totally plant-able packaging with seeds embedded into the biodegradable box. Not only do you get to enjoy fantastic products like Malagasy Ylang Ylang & Linden Flower Shower Gel
but you can also plant the box and watch it transform into organic herbs.

Eco-pragmatic packaging alternatives are also now on the rise. Polylactic acid (PLA) is a plastic-like packaging material made from corn and uses 65% less energy to produce than petroleum-based plastic. PLA is also non-toxic and generates 68% fewer greenhouse. Companies like Newman’s Own use PLA for salad mix containers. As CEO Peter Meehan puts it, “No one has ever gone to war over corn.”

The packaging industry is in fact beginning to pay closer attention to consumer demands for less wastefulness. Strikingly, over 95% of packaging is attributed to large retailers. To address this issue, leading industry magazine Packgging Digest recently launched a new blog and section dedicated entirely to sustainability in packaging.

-- Margaret