Unpackaged
The packaging industry’s steps toward sustainability
Toothbrushes and razors wrapped in individual plastic wrappers, cotton balls in multi-shaped Ziploc bags, stacks of double-layered eggs in sturdy, clear plastic cartons, small and large clear single-use containers filled to the brim with spinach and arugula — a palace of plastics.
The perfectly aligned aisles and rows of multicolored containers greet me about once every two weeks when I go on my grocery and beauty product runs. In my hand, I clutch a cloth bag in a valiant effort to be more sustainable. I avoid using thin plastic bags to carry my small vegetables. Compared to my double-bagging counterparts, I think I’m being a sustainable shopper.
But as I watch the cashier put all my purchases into my cloth bag, I silently count each plastic-covered item. About half of what I’ve bought is heavily packaged and will most likely end up in my recycling bin, which will end up in the trash room, which will end up… somewhere.
Every year, the world produces roughly 300 million tons of plastic. About 50 percent of this plastic is single-use, meaning it’s used for a few moments and then thrown away. Plastic is non-biodegradable, so whatever we throw out will proceed to live on for several hundred years.
Plastic has already had many negative impacts on the environment. Plastic trash has been found in the bodies of sea birds, sea turtles, whales and other species. A World Economic Forum report published in 2016 projected that by 2050, the mass of plastic in oceans would be higher than the mass of all their fish.
And it’s not just the oceans. Plastic pollution also threatens plants and animals on land. Not all plastic is recyclable, and consumers rarely recycle the plastic that can be. Not all plastics are clearly labelled, so many consumers dispose of the waste in recycling bins, but only about nine percent is actually recycled. The rest ends up in landfills, where it could take up to a thousand years to decompose, leading to potentially toxic runoff into the soil and water.
After taking a look at my own consumption habits, I realized how much non-biodegradable waste I create every day. Much of the waste I produce comes from the plastic that covers my everyday supplies: in the boxes that hold my produce, in the cartons of milk I drink daily and in my various bottles of bath supplies, to name just a few.
It has made me wonder — how did one material created barely a century ago completely redefine packaging?
Although plastics have been around since the late 1800s, the material really took off in 1907 with the invention of Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic created from fossil fuels. Bakelite was used for radio and telephone casings as well as in kitchenware and children’s toys. The material paved the path for the creation of more synthetic plastics: polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, polythene and nylon.
The industry continued to grow as plastic made its way onto the battlefield during World War II, used in military vehicles, radar insulation, plane cockpits and more.
After the war ended in 1945, petrochemical companies faced a new challenge: looking for new, creative ways to keep the industry afloat. They decided to turn to the consumer goods market, launching products like Tupperware.
On a recent FaceTime call, I asked my mother what it was like to grow up in the late 1970s, when the plastics industry was booming in India. She described plastic as an almost ethereal material, recalling the colorful plastic bucket that replaced the steel one she’d used to bathe and wash her clothes.
There were many factors that made these plastics appealing to a mass audience. Products made of plastic could be manufactured in a wide variety of colors and in different shapes and sizes. They were cheap and easy to carry around. In some ways, plastic was the material the world needed. Until it wasn’t.
Unsustainable Packaging
Elizabeth Royte poured a packet of sugar into her cup of tea. As we sat at a cafe in Brooklyn watching the sugar dissolve slowly — she refused to use a disposable stirrer — Royte said people didn’t realize the dangers of plastic until it was too late.
In 2005, Royte published Garbage Land, her investigation of the life cycle of trash — beginning at the moment it is tossed out. Her book, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, explores how an irresponsible and unnecessary increase in plastic consumption has had very real consequences for our environment.
Royte emphasized that it would be nearly impossible to completely phase out plastic. The material is in our homes — our televisions, cell phones, vacuum cleaners, even the floors we walk on. It is in the trains, planes and cars we travel in. It has made space travel easier, helped preserve fresh food for longer periods of time, and created other products we use daily.
Plastic also serves numerous indispensable purposes. It increases the efficiency and hygiene of medicines. Plastic syringes and tubes are disposable, reducing transmission of diseases. Plastic heart valves and joints can save lives and make life for patients more comfortable. It is also used to create protective gear like bicycle helmets and airbags, making our lives infinitely safer.
The main problem, Royte said, is that because plastic production has increased so quickly, the amount of waste created as a result is overwhelming and impossible to manage.
In the last few decades, plastic production has increased exponentially, from 2.3 million tons produced in 1950 to 448 million tons in 2015. It makes one wonder, how much of this plastic actually served a purpose? How much was truly recycled? And how much continues to live in landfills and oceans, destined to remain there for centuries?
Today, the largest market for plastics is in packaging, with plastic packaging making up forty percent of all plastics created every year. And with plastic production expected to double by 2050, waste management systems are slated to remain overwhelmed.
Royte added that many people fail to make the connection between the unsustainable packaging of the products they use and the environmental destruction happening around them. This could be because companies are not taking the responsibility of educating their consumers about how to deal with their plastic waste.
“Ten years ago, when people thought about going green, they focused on recycling their waste rather than creating less of it,” Royte said. “Plastic is an amazing material. But if you don’t understand the downsides of its manufacture, production, transport and waste, that’s bad.”
To date, there have been significant efforts to reduce plastic consumption on a global scale. Governmental and corporate sustainability campaigns have spurred conversations around recycling and the reduction of plastic.
Countries like Canada and India have pledged to ban single-use plastics in the next few years. Peru restricted visitors from carrying single-use plastics into the country’s natural and cultural protected sites and passed a law to phase out plastic bags by 2021.
In 2018, 250 companies that represent 20 percent of all plastic packaging produced signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment initiative. Companies like the H&M Group, Unilever, MARS, The Coca-Cola Company and L’Oréal committed to reducing their waste and pollution.
By the end of 2020, L’Oréal says it will have reduced the environmental footprint of its plants and distribution centers by 60 percent. The company says it has also aimed to reduce waste per unit of product. Over time, the company wants to decrease the amount of packaging it is using, but it can’t completely phase it out.
According to Manish Patil, director of packaging for L’Oréal India, companies cannot be the only ones putting in the effort to be sustainable.
“Consumers also need to seek out better alternatives — products that use certified food-grade recycled plastics and which can be further recycled.” Patil said. “Only then, we can avoid this disaster.”
In early 2020, COVID-19 brought the world to a complete halt. Cities and towns went on pause as people began to work from home and avoid large crowds. Patil said dramatic efforts like this are the key to impactful sustainability.
“People are social distancing now because they fear for their lives,” Patil said. “But if these people had the same level of fear about their planet being destroyed, they would also change the way they consumed.”
What We Use
Jane Lee has recycled her product containers since she started using beauty products in high school, saving the containers to hold her jewelry or for travel purposes. It’s a habit the Syracuse University student from South Korea says her mother instilled in her.
“I watched my mom pretty closely when it came to household habits and learned a lot about beauty and skincare from her,” Lee said. “She would always recycle and compost everything. It’s illegal not to in Korea, so I was pretty shocked to see that it wasn’t common practice in the United States.”
South Korea is a circular economy, one which minimizes its waste and optimizes usage of resources. It is one of the few countries that has, over the years, transformed its waste disposal system, going from recycling two percent of its waste to 95 percent. The country has done this through urban farming and smart bins that charge people to recycle (by the weight of their waste). People who fail to follow mandatory recycling laws are prosecuted and often face hefty fines.
Recycling and waste reduction laws are still not commonplace in other countries. Thus, industries that rely heavily on unsustainable means of packaging, like the cosmetics industry, contribute tons of waste without facing dire consequences.
Plastics have played a crucial role in delivering beauty products to consumers. In 2018, the global cosmetics packaging market was valued at $27.9 billion, and package production continues to grow steadily. When it comes to business-to-consumer operations, cosmetics companies rely on advertisements to sell their products. The packaging of a product plays a key role because it is the first impression consumers get of the product.
The cosmetics packaging market primarily uses four materials: plastic, paper, metal and glass. Plastic accounts for the largest percentage of production, making up 62.5 percent of all cosmetic packaging in 2018.
Plastic has remained the most popular packaging option by far because it is versatile and cheap to produce. Plastic containers effectively protect products from sunlight or contamination, and airtight seals prevent leakage. On top of this, plastic has made it easier for cosmetics companies to maintain the visibility of their products, making it easy for consumers to see what they are buying.
Lee said she struggles to trust companies that use environmental sustainability as their key marketing strategy.
“Products that are used on women’s faces, bodies and hair should be made with properly sourced ingredients and processed ethically,” Lee said. “That should be what matters more.”
She said many beauty products, especially ones used for skincare, should be packed in tinted glass or specific containers to prevent the product from expiring.
Cosmetics companies have also profited from putting their products into smaller units for many reasons, primarily to build brand affinity. Smaller containers are convenient for consumers to carry around, especially when travelling. They allow consumers to try out a new product without fully committing to it. They also allow consumers to use a variety of different products, giving them the ability to incorporate more flexibility into their beauty and skincare regimens. Lastly, small containers can help draw attention to a new product, primarily through distributive samples.
For the company, small, attractively packaged products may increase sales and improve customer satisfaction. But with no laws mandating the reuse of the containers, beauty products add to the overwhelming amount of plastic waste produced every day.
“In the last few years, people have started to make the link between consumption and climate change,” Royte said. “Corporations like to give the impression that they’re being less bad.”
According to Royte, cosmetics companies face a lot of pressure to make their products look like jewels — richly colored and elite. This, she says, is where sustainable packaging can make a difference.
“Plastic is so precious,” Royte said. “We should save it for those things that can’t be created with other materials.”
Moving away from plastic to more sustainable options like paper, cardboard or even bamboo packaging could reduce waste production. But if consumers refuse to adapt to a different packaging design, companies that choose to go sustainable could lose consumers to those that choose to keep on using traditional plastic.
But what if consumers could pay only for the product, returning the packaging to the store to be recycled once they were finished?
Enter Loop, a company that offers a new way to shop.
The Loop Store sells food, household products and personal care items like any grocery or convenience store, but with one major difference: consumers only pay for the product inside the packaging. Once they finish the product, they return the packaging, which Loops cleans and sends back to the manufacturing companies to reuse.
The idea was first formed at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos by Terracycle, Loop’s parent company, which deals with the backend of all types of waste, including packaging. According to Charlotte Maiden, a publicist at Loop, Terracycle believed the packaging problem could not be solved with just recycling. The packaging itself had to change.
Today, Loop works with some of the biggest companies in cosmetics, food and house cleaning products, including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Nestle, PepsiCo and Coca Cola. Their client list is only growing.
“The process of getting companies to join Loop can be long or short,” said Eric Rosen, a publicist at Loop. “But from their perspective, they’d rather be a part of the solution than continue to be a part of the problem.”
Because Loop cleans and sanitizes all the packaging, companies have to change their supply chain and revamp their packaging, according to Loop’s guidelines and specifications. After use, the consumer schedules a free pickup to return empty packaging. Consumers also have the option of setting their favorite products to “auto-fill when returned.”
Rosen said it would be impossible to lead a completely plastic-free lifestyle, and added that some of the products Loop sells come in a thick, engineered plastic that can be used over and over again.
“We don’t demonize plastic,” Rosen said. “It’s single-use packaging that is creating the worldwide waste crisis. We aim to have everything be durable and reusable.”
One of the caveats about services like Loop is that they can carry a heavier price tag. It’s a fact Rosen says the company is well aware of.
“Right now, the platform is expensive,” Rosen said. “But as we continue to grow and scale, we hope it will be accessible to everybody.”
What We Eat
During her three-hour shifts at the 4th Street Food Co-Op in the East Village, Rebecca Myles routinely sees customers use thin plastic bags to hold their produce, which they then put into a thicker plastic bag. It’s a sight that drives her crazy because she says the chances the thin plastic bags will be recycled are pretty bleak.
“One of our failures as a society is that we haven’t figured out how to deal with our waste,” she said. “If we make something that pollutes, how are we going to deal with it?”
Myles has been volunteering at the 4th Street Food Co-Op for over a decade. The store stocks a variety of products, including beans, grains, spices, herbs and teas.
The co-op is entirely member-run, with volunteers staffing shifts every day. Myles said they try to use as little packaging as possible by selling all items in bulk. People often bring their own containers and shopping bags, she said, but occasionally people will use plastic bags.
Myles said most fruits and vegetables come without plastic containers and are usually left in the open or refrigerated, although some items like strawberries and blueberries are kept in plastic to preserve their freshness.
Plastic packaging plays a key role in extending the shelf life of perishable foods like meat, produce and dairy. It has become the material of choice for food packaging because it’s flexible, light-weight, and can survive extreme environments. It is durable and helps preserve food for longer, cutting down on food waste. Plastic containers can be reused and recycled. In addition to this, companies can customize plastic packaging, increasing the visibility of their products.
But much of this packaging is tossed out, overcrowding landfills and staying intact for generations.
“Dumping is not an option because that just becomes someone else’s problem down the line,” Myles said. “There needs to be more thoughtful consideration given to how we dispose of our waste.”
Myles expressed frustration with what she says is a lack of discussion over how packaging is produced and the consequences of using it. She isn’t the only one who feels this way. In the last few years, consumers have led several “plastic attacks” against supermarkets, protesting excess packaging for food and calling for them to reduce their waste. In 2018, shoppers in Ireland staged a “Shop and Drop” event, where they left all their packaging at checkout. Grocery stores in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Switzerland have also experienced these protests with varying levels of success. The United Kingdom charges all customers a flat fee per bag. Hong Kong does the same, but some of its supermarkets face criticism for not enforcing the plastic bag fee. On the other hand, in 2018 Switzerland saw its number of distributed plastic bags fall by 86 percent.
The food companies that package the products sold in these markets now face the challenge of achieving a balance: creating less plastic waste while also stopping food from going bad and creating food wastage.
The co-op Myles works at is one of many stores that have turned to bulk-selling to cut down packaging waste. The Fillery and Precycle are other Brooklyn-based zero-waste stores that ask their customers to use their own containers or use recyclable bags to package their groceries. The containers are then weighed (with the weight of the container deducted) and the customer is charged. These stores aim to help customers reduce food and packaging waste by making more sustainable choices that are still convenient.
What We Buy
On most Sundays, Damia Mendoza buys oranges and carrots in bulk and spends the day in her Denver apartment making juices for the week ahead.
After making her juice, Mendoza, a business analyst at the Public Consulting Group in Colorado, says she makes jam and exfoliants with orange pulp and skin, crackers and soup with carrot pulp. Whatever she isn’t able to use goes straight into her local composting bin.
Since graduating from university two years ago, Mendoza has tried to make more conscious decisions about the products she buys and how often she purchases them. She buys most of her supplies in bulk. When she does have to buy something new, she says she tries to purchase things that will last her a long time.
“If it’s something you will use often, you have to make that first investment,” she said.
Mendoza says she prefers to buy most things she needs in person, and rarely shops online because she believes retailers unnecessarily over-package goods.
The online retail industry has grown massively in the last few years, with some estimates saying the market will grow to about $4 trillion in 2020. An NPR/Marist Poll found that over two in three Americans have bought something online.
Online shopping may offer the benefit of convenience, but it does so at a cost. Shipments of individual packages to consumers requires more transportation as there are more hands involved in the process.
A study published in February 2020 by a team of scientists in Europe compared the environmental impacts of shopping in a store versus online. The study found that the greenhouse gas footprint of shopping has less to do with it being online or in person and more with the number of items purchased and how far the consumer or the package had to travel.
Sadegh Shahmohammadi, a Netherlands-based scientist who worked on the study, said most of the time, shopping through companies like Amazon doesn’t fully replace consumers’ travels to the supermarket, i.e. consumers may rely on a mix of online and in-store shopping to buy the products they need. According to Shahmohammadi, this is a big factor in package waste that comes from shopping.
Shahmohammadi said the best thing consumers can do is buy items in bulk at stores near them. He also said retailers could use greener substitutes to deliver their products to consumers, like substituting delivery vans with electric cargo bikes.
In terms of packaging, Shahmohammadi said consumers who shop in-store tend to have higher expectations of the packaging around a product because it’s what attracts them in the first place. But online, people don’t see the products directly, so there isn’t as much of a need for fancy packaging.
But online retailers also face the bigger challenge of ensuring that the consumer receives the goods in pristine condition. In an effort to do this, companies excessively package their products. This can mean putting a small package inside a relatively large box filled with air-bags. It’s an effective process but is wasteful — companies are simply shipping air.
Responsible consumers like Mendoza are starting to realize the enormity of the packaging issue and are starting to either opt out of online shopping or look for retailers that provide some sort of sustainable packaging option.
Amazon offers a “Frustration-Free Packaging Program,” which it says produces less waste by using envelopes instead of boxes for smaller shipments and shipping products in their original packaging. However, this packaging is only for Amazon-approved vendors. For some companies, going through this process can be time-consuming and expensive.
For this reason, some online retail companies are turning to start-ups to help reduce their waste and package products more sustainably.
RePack is a Finland-based startup that encourages its consumers to reuse the packaging their products are shipped in, and even rewards them when they return the packaging of the products they buy. RePack has circulated reusable packaging in Europe for the last five years and is officially launching in the United States and Canada this year.
RePack’s packaging is currently designed to ship apparel, but can also ship items like accessories, art and small furniture. RePacks are made from 100 percent recyclable material. The bags are designed to flatten when empty, making them easy to return. Consumers can return the packaging by folding it and dropping it into a postbox anywhere in the world, free of charge. The RePack bags are then checked, cleaned and redistributed back to the participating webstores.
Each RePack bag is designed to be reused at least 20 times. After this, the bag is “upcycled” to create new products. The company says it uses the material to make prototypes and samples for new packaging designs. To date, RePack has made over 200,000 deliveries.
According to Clémence Avignon, a sales and marketing manager at RePack, although online shopping has become a part of our daily lives, there remains a lack of sustainable packaging solutions.
Although compostable options exist, Avignon says she doesn’t think there is enough infrastructure to handle these alternative options, which thus end up in landfills or are incinerated. This is wasteful and emits a high level of carbon, she said.
“With reuse and our return system, we close the loop and maintain control of what is really happening to the packaging,” she added.
Avignon said companies should share the costs of packaging with their consumers by adding a sustainable packaging fee at checkout.
“People care about the planet, and you can give them the choice of doing something good, at little cost to them,” she said.
Startups similar to RePack have emerged in the United States that also revolve around recyclable and reusable packaging. LimeLoop is one such California-based startup that has created durable shipping pouches which can be recycled from used billboards. It claims its packaging lasts ten years and can be used as many as 2,000 times with some cleaning and repairs.
The Package Free Shop is another New York-based startup making waves in sustainable online packaging. The company partners with brands to reduce their waste. Brands and individual vendors that provide sustainable alternatives can apply for their products to be sold on the Package Free Shop website. The company ships items completely plastic free, reusing boxes they have. The company claims that since its founding in 2017, it has kept the equivalent of over four million plastic straws, over three million plastic bags and nearly two million non-recyclable bottles and cups out of a landfill.
It took Mendoza about three years to introduce sustainable alternatives into every aspect of her life by discovering places like the Package Free Shop and changing her buying habits. But she says her lifestyle is far from perfect. Because she travels a lot for her consulting work, there are certain factors she is still trying to cut down on.
“When you take baby steps, you don’t just take steps and rest for a week. You do it every day and little by little, you start to see the benefits,” Mendoza said. “I feel like my mind is healthier because I don’t desire all these things I don’t need. My home is not cluttered. My head is clear.”
Mendoza says she became interested in living a greener lifestyle after following social media accounts about sustainability. Now, she herself shares tips and tricks for her friends and family on her social media accounts in an effort to get them to also build more sustainable habits.
“People feel like they have to go to the extremes to make a difference,” Mendoza said. “I try to find more manageable ways and share them.”
Cutting down on her use of heavily packaged products has helped Mendoza go from taking her trash out once every three days to once a month.
“You start to realize all the crap you don’t need,” she said.
Individual and Group Action
Companies have perfected the packaging of their products down to a science — the result of heavy investments in packaging and advertising research.
Elizabeth Royte described the experience of buying an iPhone as a key example of why packaging matters.
“Part of the pleasure of the phone is opening up the box,” she said. “It makes you feel better about spending all that money.”
Royte said one of the biggest obstacles a consumer faces in adapting a more sustainable lifestyle is their mindset, because convenience and the psychological appeal of good packaging are factors consumers struggle to reject.
“When something is packaged, it has this aura of never being touched,” Royte said. “What is it about newness? There is something in us that appreciates the pristine.”
Royte argues packaging is important, necessary even, because it protects and maintains the quality of the products on which consumers spend their money. But she said consumers also have to hold the companies they buy from accountable, to expect them to adopt more sustainable policies.
For a dramatic reduction in the global levels of packaging waste, a lot needs to change. On the grander scale, companies need to continue to come together and form agreements. There needs to be a consensus; social responsibility done in bits and pieces will not be as effective. Companies that adopt sustainable policies that increase product prices or alter the consumer experience must be able to do so without losing to competitive companies that aren’t making any changes.
At the individual level, people who can afford to should opt for companies that sustainably package, and everyone should make conscious efforts to reduce their consumption of products that are heavily and wastefully packaged.
Through all this, sustainably-minded startups must continue to play the crucial role of the middle-man between consumers and company.
Royte pushed her chair back and put her ceramic cup on a tray near the entrance of the cafe. As she put on her coat, she turned to me.
“We need innovators,” she said. “Although some will succeed and some will fail, we need people thinking out of the box.” And out of the plastic package.
