Why Industry Is Changing For Ecological Packaging?

Eco-Friendly Packaging

If you read our article about the 15 Top Food Trends For 2019 you see that ecological packaging is one of the biggest trends for this year. This is not a new trend, in fact, the eco-friendly packaging movement starts a few years ago, but will grow exponentially in 2019.

Public consciousness about issues like climate change is influencing buying habits and consumer choices. Consumers are now aware of how many single-use plastics we actually go through, and how bad for the environment they are. Among the many desirable features, they choose products for their packaging. Increasingly, eco-friendly packaging isn’t just an Earth-friendly way to sell a product. It’s how to broadcast a company’s values and ethos.

As a result, the number of brands making the switch to packaging with the environment in mind will grow.

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Why Industry Is Changing To Ecological Packaging?

All over the world countries are acting to reduce the impact that trash is having on the planet. Normally when trash doesn’t biodegrade or compost, countries are forced to send them to landfills, which has been proven to pollute groundwater. Another inefficient alternative is to send our waste to space, but this not a solution, is just a delay of the problem. A collaborative report from a few departments of the U.S. government listed the time it takes for some packaging to break down in the environment. They include:

Glass bottle: 1 million years.
Plastic beverage bottles: 450 years.
Aluminum can: 80-to-200 years.
Plastic bag: 10-to-20 years.

Lucky for us countries are now taking a strong stance to solve this problem. Australia and Marocco have already banned all plastic bags in the county. In Kenya, is now illegal to use or sell plastic bags, even China has cracked down on plastic bags, too. The point is that laws are changing and companies that don’t lead the way by embracing eco-friendly packaging now will soon vanish. By being a part of the solution today, it doesn’t just save the planet, it demonstrates corporate responsibility and states company values loud and clear.

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Eco-Friendly Packaging & Big Companies

Many big companies are following this trend of environmental awareness. Big names like Gucci and Luis Vuitton are in the lead to a sustainable planet. Companies are promoting their sustainable packaging and trash is being turned into desirable, trendy furniture and other products. The sports industry is also changing. Nike boasts that it has saved over 3 billion plastic bottles from reaching landfills since 2010, thanks to using recycled polyester in making clothing from plastic. Adidas is another brand that is working hard for a green planet. In order to build a more sustainable business plan, Adidas paired up with Parley for the Oceans to repurpose the millions of pounds of plastic currently polluting the world’s oceans. Instead of remaining waste, Adidas has found a smart way to use recycling to their (and the planet’s) benefit.

Unfortunately, society has learned the hard way that convenient packaging is bad for the planet. Today, the best packaging is either part of a brave new future of using waste to make innovative products, as Nike, Adidas, Gucci or other brands are doing.

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Advantages of Ecological Packaging

There are several names for ecological packaging, some people call it sustainable packaging, green packaging or even environmentally-friendly packaging. To be eco-friendly, packaging as to be biodegradable, recyclable, reusable, non-toxic, made from recycled products, based in biomass or natural products or manufactured through low-impact means.

The glass is a perfect example of eco-friendly material. It meets the green packaging definition because it’s recyclable but also infinitely use.

How do  Eco-Friendly Products Help the Environment?

A great way to understand how eco-friendly products help the environment is to look deep into a glass bottle.

To make glass involves someone collecting silica (sand), and trucking that sand to a factory. The truck uses gasoline and emits carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change. Then, turning that silica into glass requires electricity as well as other fuels. You already understand the point, although glass is a green product, its production pollute the environment.

Every time someone reuses the bottle, it’s one fewer time that the whole process of using natural resources occurs. And every time someone recycles a glass bottle, it may still need energy and cause carbon dioxide pollution from trucking the bottles, melting them down and reforming them, but at least sand isn’t used, and that’s a resource that experts are increasingly saying needs conservation.

Eco-friendly products and packaging can be helpful in other ways, too. They may be biodegradable or made from more sustainable, faster-replenishing natural products like bamboo. Bamboo, for instance, can be harvested for paper and other materials every two-to-three years, versus upwards of 60 years for a new tree to grow. Simply using less packaging is also an excellent way to be eco-friendly.