By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information.

What's Green Packaging? FGP looks at the bigger picture of paper vs plastic packaging.

[x]

minute read

“80% of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable packaging", according to a Simon-Kucher & Partners survey.

Most of us care about being greener but how much do we know about what’s actually green, beyond just its colour?! And does it cost more?

You may be confused with misinformation in the media, usually propagated by lobbyists, vested interests, or click-bait journalists and suspect there's more to the situation than we're told.

We hope this article offers more impartial information about the paper vs plastic debate.

There are 3 main ways a material impacts the environment;

1) Manufacture. How it’s made such as amount of energy, water, chemicals, raw materials etc.

2) Process. How it’s used such as amount of material & transport needed, and its effectiveness

3) End Of Life. How it ends up such as re-use, re-purpose, recycled, general waste or littered

Scientists call this a Life Cycle Assessment LCA, and it’s considered the best way to know what’s green.

What we see and what we don’t

Naturally, as consumers, we have more visibility of materials at their End Of Life aka disposal, especially food and drink packaging. But we have much less visibility of the impact of their Manufacture or Process. One material may have a visible negative impact such as plastic littered in a field, while invisibly it could have saved a larger negative impact of Manufacturing & Processing a different material.

What's packaging for?

An effective material, doing its job efficiently transporting & protecting, means less re-manufacturing of both the product and the packaging itself. The overall impact of re-manufacturing the product far outweighs the impact of the actual packaging. Food waste is a good example of how effective packaging significantly reduces food spoiling and waste. (Interesting fact: if food waste were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest emitter after China and USA. Source in appendix). And most food is packaged in plastic due to its effectiveness. If it were packaged in alternative materials, food waste would increase even higher, along with the cost of food. Further, LCA studies shows how alternative food packaging increases weight on average by 3.6 times, energy 2.2 times and CO2 emissions 2.7 times (source in appendix).

It’s a similar story for most packaging types, especially protective packaging whose primary aim is to protect products. If a product, whether it be glass, electrical, ceramics or so on, gets damaged then the customer’s impression, the supplier’s profitability and the environment are also damaged, with the impact of making and delivering a new product.

You may share similar experiences when a cardboard sleeve for a bottle pack broke and 4 bottles smashed. Or when I collected a take away in a paper bag ‘and’ a plastic carrier bag to ensure £40+ worth of food didn’t fall on the floor, with the dog being the only winner. There are of course times when paper packaging is as effective, but the bigger picture still needs considering....

Paper versus Plastic protective packaging

If you Google ‘LCA Plastic Bag’ 28 LCA studies prove plastic bags cause least harm overall. E.g. a typical plastic bag weighs less than 6g, whereas a paper equivalent weighs 60g. The paper bag generates 10x more waste. (Source in appendix). Also imagine how many more lorries are needed to transport the same number of paper bags.

The paper and plastic materials compared in these LCA studies are the same materials used in most paper and plastic protective packaging. So, we can learn a lot from the LCA results as to their varying impact.

Further to this, these glowing results for plastic are based on no reuse or recycling, which significantly reduces its impact further. Likewise, the results are based on regular plastic so if the plastic is made from Recycled Content, their overall environmental impact is massively reduced further again.

All said, no one wants to see plastic packaging in nature...

But have we got a material problem or a waste problem?

Waste ending up in the environment is not the material’s fault, rather it's littering and/ or poor waste management. Given plastic’s least impact and effectiveness in the majority of cases, it seems sensible to focus on improving its End Of Life. That might be discouraging littering by education, fines and deposit schemes, along with improving existing recycling infrastructure and policy. Littering is proven to be the main cause but authorities also need to dispose waste responsibly and not cheaply such as through developing countries. Until policy and recycling infrastructure improves, which thankfully they are, our collective efforts of reusing, reducing and recycling will make a big difference. Soft plastics, like carrier bags and protective packaging, are increasingly collected curbside but if not can be collected at supermarkets.

The problem with new plastic or paper alternatives

Our efforts to dispose better are much easier and cheaper than spending millions on R&D for new so-called eco materials (seaweed, mushrooms etc.) which lessen impact if littered, but shouldn’t be littered in the 1st place. And as we know their manufacture and process usually increase harm. Even if they're disposed responsibly, it's not easy to do. Most new materials are non-recyclable and hard to compost, so creating widespread facilities would be highly inefficient. These 'appear good' materials also increase waste as they’re perceived to be recyclable so go in recycling, but prevent what would have been recycled due to contamination. Littering also increases because the material is perceived to be more ‘okay’ to litter in nature.

There is still responsibility on producers to not use more material than needed and use mono-materials as much as possible to make recycling easier. Likewise, producers can use more Recycled Content and in some cases Bio or Compostable materials. The plastics Treaty aims to promote this (see Plastics Treaty blog). The pros and cons of various Bio materials are explored in the Bio-degradable or Bio-debatable Blog. There's of course more to this nuanced subject but we hope this helps you feel more informed.

How Forever Green Packaging can help

FGP offer both paper and plastic protective packaging. Paper which is certified by the Forestry Standard Commission FSC, and Plastic which is made with either Recyclable Recycled Content, or Compostable. Our free Return 2 Recycle & Return 2 Compost services make recycling and composting easier.

‍

Appendix

‍