The facts show a very different picture...
Some of the trouble is the majority of environmental impact isn't something we can see. It isn't determined by appearance, origin, or public perception. It's determined by measurement — and the globally accepted method for measuring it is called life cycle analysis, or LCA. Allow us to give you an introduction to LCA...
Understanding what LCA actually means is, in our view, the single most important thing a business can do before making any decision about packaging materials. Because without it, you are making decisions based on instinct rather than evidence — and in packaging, those two things very often point in opposite directions.
What LCA measures
A life cycle analysis is exactly what it sounds like: an assessment of the full environmental impact of a material or product across its entire life. Not just one part of it. All metrics considered.
That means starting with raw material extraction — the energy and resources required to grow, mine, or synthesise the material in the first place. It includes manufacturing: the energy consumed, the emissions produced, the water used. It covers transportation at every stage — from raw material to factory, factory to distributor, distributor to customer. It accounts for the use phase, and critically, it includes end of life: what happens when the material is used such as reused, disposed, recycled, composted, or sent to landfill.
LCA measures this across multiple environmental impact categories. Greenhouse gas emissions — the one most people focus on — is just one of them. Another large focus is seeing it nature, which is often due to waste mis-management and littering, rather than the material's fault. Energy consumption, water use, fossil fuel demand, and solid waste generation are all part of the picture. A material that performs well on one metric but poorly on others isn't necessarily the greenest choice overall.
This is why LCA so frequently produces results that contradict common assumptions. A material that appears natural and biodegradable may require vastly more energy to produce and transport than its synthetic alternative. A material that feels wasteful may, across its full life cycle, generate a small fraction of the environmental burden of the perceived greener option that replaced it. Likewise, terms like compostable or biodegradable might sound good but these materials are not recyclable. Due to no compostable collections in most countries, they can then end up polluting recycling streams meaning plastics which would have been recycled aren't - exacerbating the problem. In reality, current waste infrastructure means they should go in general waste for landfill or incineration, which is the opposite result to what we most think. Then there's the worst case reality of increased littering as people think the materials are less damaging to the environment.
Why instinct leads us astray
Dr. ChrisDeArmitt is an independent materials scientist — a PhD chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry — who has spent years reviewing the peer-reviewed science on plastics and the environment, funded by no one but himself. His conclusion, drawn from reviewing hundreds of published studies, is blunt: public opinion on packaging materials is almost entirely disconnected from the scientific evidence.
In his research, DeArmitt found that the stories we tell ourselves about materials — paper good, plastic bad — are not supported by LCA data. They are supported by how materials look and feel, by the images we associate with them, and by a decade of campaigning that prioritised emotional impact over scientific accuracy.
The result is that many businesses are now making packaging decisions that feel responsible but are measurably worse for the environment than the choices they replaced. e.g. paper straws that cost more, perform worse, and on full LCA produce greater environmental impact than the plastic straws they replaced. Paper bags that require significantly more energy and water to produce than plastic equivalents. Packaging choices made under the banner of sustainability that, by the only rigorous measure available, are less sustainable.
This isn't a fringe view. It is the consistent finding of independent, peer-reviewed research conducted by scientists with no commercial interest in the outcome.
What LCA consistently shows about packaging materials
When LCA is applied to protective packaging materials — the category we work in — the results are consistent across studies and across countries. Plastic film packaging, the same class of material as our air cushion films, produces lower greenhouse gas emissions, consumes less energy, generates less solid waste, needs far less transport, and requires less raw material than paper or cardboard alternatives of equivalent protective function.
The gap is not marginal. Across the studies reviewed by DeArmitt, switching from plastic to alternative packaging materials increases average packaging weight by a factor of 3.6, energy use by 2.2 times, and CO₂ emissions by 2.7 times. These are not theoretical projections. They are the measured outcomes of comparing real materials in real-world conditions, published in peer-reviewed journals, and replicated across multiple independent research programmes.
For businesses currently operating paper-only packaging policies in the belief that they are reducing their environmental impact, these figures deserve careful consideration.
What this means in practice
At Forever Green Packaging, we don't ask customers to take our word for it — or anyone else's. We point to the same published science that independent researchers like Dr.DeArmitt have spent years compiling, and we let the evidence speak.
What LCA tells us, consistently, is that the material choices with the lowest environmental impact are often not the ones that feel greenest. They are the ones that, across their full life — from raw material to end of life — place the least burden on the planet.
That is the standard we hold our recommendations to. And it is why, when a customer asks us which packaging material is the most sustainable choice for their operation, our answer is always based on the evidence — not on what is most fashionable to say.
In the next piece in this series, we look at the specific case that makes this argument most compellingly: why the plastic shopping bag — perhaps the most vilified packaging item of the past decade — is, by every credible LCA measure, the greenest flexible packaging option available. And we'll find out how these findings apply even more so to Forever Green's air cushion void fill packaging.
*References: Dr.Chris DeArmitt PhD, FRSC, FIMMM. The Plastics Paradox (2020) and Shattering thePlastics Illusion. Independent research, self-funded, no industry sponsorship.All studies cited by DeArmitt are peer-reviewed and publicly available.*