Are you still using single-use plastics bags and non-recyclable materials packaging in your company? Do you know that those single-use plastic bags and non-recyclable materials can bring harmful effects to living organisms and our planet? Plastics were first invented in 1907, since then, it is used worldwide due to its resistance, versatility and affordable price. The ‘use and throw’ lifestyle that we lead causes the annual global plastics waste increase annually, worsening marine and river pollution, making it become one of the most pressing environmental issues. With the increasing awareness of the impacts and damages caused by plastic wastes and other non-recyclable materials, looking for something eco-friendlier to replace plastics and other non-recyclable materials has never been more important.
What is Sustainable Packaging?
Sustainable packaging offer by Packaton is the solution for reducing plastics and non-recyclable materials waste. Sustainable packaging, also known as green packaging, is the development and use of packaging, which results in improved sustainability. This involves increased use of life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle assessment (LCA) to help guide the use of packaging, which reduces the environmental impact and ecological footprint.
The Trend of Sustainable Packaging in 2020
The increasing number of eco-minded company, the increasing awareness of public towards the impacts of usage of plastics and non-recyclable materials, and the government policies on ‘no plastic bag day’ and ‘no plastic straw’ in the certain market has led to the movement towards eco-friendly packaging over last decades. Today, the increasing number of marketers embracing sustainable packaging are pushing the development of sustainable packaging forward in an exciting new direction.
In 2020, there are three emerging trends for sustainable packaging. The first trend is designing for recycling and reusing. According to Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation (SWCorp Malaysia), Malaysia’s recycling rate is low because of the public low level of awareness for Reduce-Reuse-Recycle (3Rs). Moreover, sustainable packaging is still very challenging for most of the companies as post-consumer packaging needs to undergo proper waste segregation to fulfil the requirements for a recycling plant to use the waste materials effectively.
To fulfil these requirements, manufacturers may have to spend more material and energy when they produce recyclable packaging. However, the recyclable packaging doesn’t mean that it will be automatically recycled. Therefore, designing for recycling and reusing is important to find sustainable solutions in the short term. Besides, reuse is even more difficult to envision than recycling. Therefore, to ensure the reuse and recycling processes can work effectively, the manufacturer should take in consideration the product-specific characteristics, companies should rethink the packaging, and governments and organizations should work for hand on hand in hand on infrastructures and culture.
The next trend is replacing fossil-fuels-based plastics with bioplastics. Bioplastics are plastics materials produced from renewable biomass sources (such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc.). The most common types of bioplastics are starch-based plastics, cellulose-based plastics and protein-based plastics. Bioplastics decompose quicker than fossil-fuels-based plastics, therefore, the demands for bioplastics has largely increased over the last decades.
The last trend is the return of the paper. Although paper packaging is not commonly seen in Malaysia, we do see an increase in adoption of this sustainable option for packaging for many businesses. Online retails are now using brown paper to wrap their product for shipping and avoiding large boxes and platics to reduce the carbon footprint. These can also be observed from the increasing use of paper cup in restaurant and takeaways following the awareness campaign of plastic reduction nationwide.
One thing to take note is that brown paper is more sustainable than white paper packaging. In order to turn the paper into the clean white sheet, paper industry needs a large amount of water and chemical additives to bleach the paper, and those additives can highly pollute the environment. Make sure you opt for unbleached paper packaging & ensuring the material is sourced from sustainably managed forestry.
The Benefits of Adopting Sustainable Packaging
There are numerous advantages that came along with being sustainable and going greener with packaging. Sustainable packaging can reduce your carbon footprint. By cutting down the amount of packaging needed to complete the finished goods, the emission of carbon dioxide is reduced, and it positively influenced the carbon footprint. Moreover, switching your company’s packaging to sustainable packaging helps to create a good impression of your company and attracting more eco-conscious customers. This is because practising sustainable packaging shows that you care about the environment as well as depicting that you are a responsible company.
Moreover, sustainable packaging saves you money. This is because when you are practising sustainable packaging, you are reducing the number of raw materials for packaging, and this ends up getting you more space for your products and leads to a reduction in shipping costs. In addition, sustainable packaging is free of toxins and allergens, therefore, it shows no harmful effects on our health. Most importantly, sustainable packaging is biodegradable, easy disposal, and eco-friendly.
The Leading Sustainable Packaging Supplier in Malaysia
As one of the few ‘green’ company in Malaysia, Packaton is confident to be the sustainable packaging supplier in Malaysia who offers eco-friendly and sustainable packaging which suits your company. Therefore, sustainable packaging offer by Packaton is the right choice for yourself, your company and our mother earth.