Doing all we can to help reduce our impact on the environment is essential. And one way to do this is to reduce single-use plastic and anything else harmful to the environment.
Packaging is a significant source of waste. Changing your packaging to be environmentally friendly can be one of the best moves you can make as a brand or business to lessen your environmental impact.
But how do you do it? How do you remove those plastic items so often found in packaging?
These are the questions that we want to answer in this article. We want to give you some practical tips on how you can transition from single-use plastics to paper and cardboard. Or choose new environmentally friendly materials such as bioplastic.
So let’s dive into the ideas and help make your packaging eco-friendly.
1 – Change to compostable labels
Using plastic for custom stickers and labels is the traditional material of choice. But they’re not great for every application, especially for short-term use, such as packaging.
New bioplastic materials are available on the market. These materials compost in just a few months in the correct environment, which is so much more sustainable than choosing plastic.
The image below shows an example of a compostable sticker.
Instead of choosing plastic stickers in your next print run, why not go bioplastic instead? It’s much better for the environment, which sends a great message to your customers about your brand.
2 – Move away from plastic for takeaway dishes
Takeaway food outlets have historically used styrofoam boxes and plastic cutlery for their packaging. And it’s clear that these are not environmentally friendly and go straight into landfill!
Luckily, there are many alternatives today, so making a move to a cardboard box and wooden cutlery is a no-brainer.
You can even then decorate it with a biodegradable paper sticker like the one in the image below to keep it on brand, this means it can be put straight into the recycling, unlike packaging with a vinyl sticker applied.
3 – Find compostable alternatives
Similar to the cutlery and the styrofoam boxes mentioned above, there are non-plastic alternatives to many traditional packaging elements.
For example, clothes hangers are available in cardboard or made out of bioplastic. Instead of using a cellophane wrapper for clothes, you can now choose a compostable bag or wrap it in brown craft paper.
There are so many alternatives a quick Google will show you what’s available. It puts your brand in a great place with the consumer when they see you making an effort to be more friendly towards the environment.
4 – Remove packaging where possible
Have you ever bought bananas and they come in a plastic bag? Or maybe you’ve purchased cut-up a mango in a plastic tub.
This is pure waste and completely unnecessary.
Why not try to remove packaging where possible. The products in the packaging often don’t need it, such as the two examples above.
Eradicating packaging is the most environmentally friendly option because it doesn’t use anything, so it’s always the best if you can do that.
So I would encourage you to challenge your thinking and really try and remove anything unnecessary.
Conclusion
So there we have it for different ideas to help you transition to environmentally friendly packaging.
We discussed moving to carpal boxes and choosing eco-friendly stickers.
There are, of course, so many different ideas you can action that will have a positive impact. We would love to hear what you’re doing. Please comment below. Thanks for reading.