LIFE AFTER PLASTIC

People of Earth, we have a problem. It's big, it's bad, it's ugly and it stinks. You already know all about the millions of tonnes of waste we dump on our beautiful green planet, so we won't harp-on about it here. It's time to focus on the positive plans afoot to create packaging that isn't rubbish.

Gregg Segal - 7 Days of Trash

Reducing…

Spanish company Laser Food etches logos and labelling onto fruit skin as an eco-friendly alternative to stickers and over packaging. This year, Marks & Spencer will trial the technology!

Puma say: 'The tens of millions of shoes shipped in our bag will reduce water, energy and diesel consumption on the manufacturing level alone by more than 60% per year.' - Agreed! Very Clever indeed! 

Recycling…

Creating an antidote for our global plastic addiction is a pretty gargantuan challenge. The eco.bottle®  is squaring-up to the task by supplying numerous product brands with a plastic alternative made from one of the most renewable and recyclable resources —paper!

Rethinking Materials

Daylesford Organic invested in Lean Pack by EcoLean, a material that breaks down into water, carbon dioxide and chalk. This material takes less energy to produce and transport, and generates less waste overall. Shame about the lack of brand visibility in the graphics, but well-done on the investment in an innovative sustainable material for a product that is a huge commodity in most Western Countries!

Revisting the past…

There's a lot of material innovation taking place to create sustainable packaging made from organic materials that break-down faster. Here in Asia, it's been happening since, well, forever! Future solutions can be found by both looking forward into material innovation and taking cues from historical solutions that have worked in the past...

Hideyuki Oka explains in his book on traditional Japanese packaging design, How to Wrap Five Eggs, 'the earliest packaging was accomplished by wrapping a given object in whatever material lay at hand. The outcome was often not only adequate for storing and transporting the object but might well have been a beautiful shape free of all excess and extravagance.'