Due to the increasing amount of waste generation, many companies are now working to promote environmental awareness in the form of eco friendly packaging. Manufacturers in a wide variety of industries have begun to implement this form of packaging to help reduce their carbon footprint, carbon emissions, and the amount of packaging reaching landfills.

Just the Facts

According to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA), more than 250 million tons of municipal solid waste was generated in 2007 alone. What’s more, only 33 percent was recovered for recycling.

The EPA also reported that paper packaging has generated some 1.5 million tons of waste. Of this, only very small amounts were actually recovered. When the EPA reported on plastic waste, they found that more than 13 million tons were generated with around 12 percent of that recycled.

Problems with Eco Friendly Packaging

Before you can approach eco friendly packaging, there are some issues to consider, depending on your industry. For example, packaging that has held food products is unable to be recycled due to staining made by the food. This can contaminate the paper slurry that’s used to produce new packaging. Similar issues exist when there are coatings on plastic and paper cups, glues, adhesives, and tapes that are used on some products. These make recycling difficult because the materials set to undergo recycling need to be free of any contamination in order to be successfully used.

Going Green

Eco friendly packaging, green packaging, sustainable packaging – whatever the name, it’s all about producing packaging that won’t harm the environment.

And it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. You can be in pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, health and beauty, household and garden, or automotive and industrial – going green is a necessity across the board.

Solutions for the Environment

New solutions for producing eco friendly packaging are being developed. There are plastic substitutes, but using the additives known as prodegradant concentrates, or PDCs, is becoming more popular. These ordinarily metal compounds like manganese stearate or cobalt stearate use oxidation that breaks plastics down into brittle, low-molecular weight fragments. In turn, micro organisms can attack the fragments, turning them into water, carbon dioxide, and biomass. Once this occurs, there are no residues to harm the environment.

For example, if you add PDC to polyethylene, this additive can cause almost complete breakdown — 95 percent within four weeks — for an environmentally friendly solution.

Another form of eco friendly packaging has been found. Known as liquid wood, this is a biopolymer that originates from a pulp-based compound called lignin. It acts just like plastic and is a renewable resource and unlike the usual petroleum-based plastics, is biodegradable. And due to its wood origins, it can be recycled just like wood.

Yet another compound in the works for gaining environmentally friendly marks is polycaprolactone or PCL. This synthetic aliphatic polyester degrades after only six weeks of composting. There are some cost issues but if it is combined with cornstarch, your cost can be reduced.

Got corn? Or wheat of sugar cane? If so, you can use a biodegradable plastic known as polylactic acid or PLA. Like PCL, PLA is an aliphatic polyester and is made from lactic acid. Its production comes as the result of starch fermentation during wet milling of corn, wheat, or sugar cane.

PLA is as rigid as PET and polystyrene. However, the best thing about it is that is decomposes within 47 days at an industrial composting site, it also doesn’t release any toxic fumes, and it also uses 20 to 50 percent less fossil fuels. You can also combine this compound with starch to reduce your costs and to increase its biodegradability.

If you’re not sure where to begin your eco friendly packaging journey, you’ll need to obtain a highly knowledgeable consultant who can advise you of the best green packaging for your products. They should have access to many numerous suppliers.

Choosing the right eco friendly packaging for your products can be difficult and vital to your branding. MJS Packaging offers the best customer service and lowest prices for your product packaging. We have exclusive access to manufacturers from all around the world, so we can advise you on the best bottles, tubes, closures, caps, and other packaging needs you require.