Gigaton Potential
Today, the use of plastic is all-pervasive. Project Drawdown estimates that reducing the amount of plastic used in non-durable goods (such as Packaging and household goods) could avoid 3.76 - 5.40 GT of Co2 emissions.
You Might be Interested If…
You see enormous potential for renewable (and reusable) materials to transform packaging
You are a conscious founder and want to minimize your brand’s carbon footprint
You are a plastic warrior and want to eliminate single-use plastic
What You Should Know
In the United States, ~16M tons of packaging and food-service plastics (mostly “single-use”) are used every year, of which a small proportion is recycled. The rest leaks into our oceans and landfills - choking marine life and creating ecological imbalance.
The boom of e-commerce, eco-awareness of the young consumers and growing regulatory pressure is demanding increased climate action from brands. Packaging is a channel for CPG companies to reduce their environmental footprint and stay relevant in an increasingly crowded marketplace. However, minimizing the carbon footprint from packaging comes with two primary obstacles:
CPG players’ inertia to adopt plastic alternatives:
Plastic is a familiar material with known cost implications and properties. Replacing it with alternatives requires a deeper study of the implicit costs, i.e. material, processing, labor etc., which can vary by region. Making such packaging changes across regions and product lines risks the brand image and may adversely impact brand recognition in the short run. Furthermore, companies have to make trade-offs between recyclability, durability and customer convenience: For example, while a milk carton enhances shelf life and is designed for on-the-go consumption, the multi-material packaging itself is difficult to recycle.
Leakage and poor recovery rate of plastic packaging:
In the process of aggregating waste materials for reuse or reprocessing, plastics that are not properly managed leak into the environment. ~36% of all plastics produced are used in packaging, of which ~85% end up in landfills or as unregulated waste. Waste mismanagement is an amplified issue in developing economies (see below).
Source: Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2018) - "Plastic Pollution". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution' [Online Resource]
Why are recovery rates so low? Let’s break down the process.
Collection:
End users often dispose of plastic recyclables along with other trash due to a lack of incentive or awareness.
If the cost of collecting and processing the waste is lower than the value of the recycled output, contractors and municipalities instead opt to channel waste to landfills or incinerators.
Waste management involves big money, and often the stakeholders involved try to pocket the money, leaving waste management systems broken. (Read this example of the waste mafia from Karnataka, India or Naples, Italy.)
Sorting:
Existing sorting technology does not effectively sort all shapes and forms of plastic. McKinsey & Co. highlights how flat waste (film, bags, lids, pouches) gets caught up in ballistic sorters, and small waste (toiletry tubes) passes through the sorters and gets channeled to landfills.
Contamination from non-plastic waste (e.g., textiles, food waste, diapers etc.) impacts the recyclability of the plastic.
(Re)Processing or Recovery:
Plastic has become increasingly complicated to recycle, with colors, additives, mixed compositions, and multiple layers. In many countries, multi-material packaging is dumped/incinerated because industrial processes for recycling laminated films are not widely available.
Recovery technologies such as mechanical reclaiming and waste-to-energy do not have high recovery rates. The quality of processed plastic deteriorates, which makes it not food-grade certified.
Buy Back of Recyclables:
China was an attractive destination to export plastic recyclables until it enacted the “National Sword” policy in 2018 and banned the import of most plastics for recycling. Before this, recycling processors such as California Waste Solutions sold ~70% of their recyclables to China. With this revenue curbed, many waste management companies across the US and Europe have shut down operations, increasing pressure on the waste management system.
Key Players
The sustainable packaging and packaging waste management space continues to grow, with innovators mushrooming across sub-sectors, a few of which are listed below:
Material Innovation:
Apeel adds a “peel” to produce that helps it stay fresh by preventing water loss and oxidation.
Mushroom Packaging by Ecovative offers a compostable packaging material that is made by growing mycelium with agricultural matter (MycoComposite™ technology).
Sway makes regenerative zero-plastic packaging from seaweed, which mimics the functionality of plastic.
Reusable Packaging:
TerraCycle partners with brands to collect and recycle their packaging.
Swapbox, washes collected packaging materials to make them fit for recycling/reuse, and offers packaging rental, and packaging tracking technology solutions.
Recycling:
NoW, with patented technology, recycles laminated paper-based products and products with plastic films and coatings (e.g., sugar sachets, food service papers, and aluminum laminations).
Opportunities for Innovation
With consumers and government mandates such as EPR (Extended producer responsibility) (UK) pushing brands to be environmentally responsible, CPG players will continue to look for innovative solutions to transition to low-waste packaging models. Here are some key opportunities to explore in the ecosystem:
🧼 Rethink Product Design
Innovate beyond existing product designs and rethink the user experience. For example, shampoo bars can replace liquid shampoo.
Prioritize reuse/refill models: “Bring your own” models
📦 Build circularity into packaging
Enhance access to conscious materials (Recycled, dye-free, biodegradable, etc.). that is usually resource efficient and can be reused easily.
Eliminate the use of virgin materials. For example, with Beauty (Re)Purposed, Sephora accepts packaging from customers and recycles it through Pact.
🍄 Material Innovation
From cornstarch to seaweed, a variety of natural materials are gaining popularity as plastic alternatives. However, they are still far from being as affordable and popular as plastic.
🚮 Invest in Waste Management Infrastructure
Scale collection, sorting, and recycling facilities to increase access to recycling services. ~30M rural and 15M suburban US households do not have access to curbside recycling, and this problem is exacerbated in developing economies.
🏡 Incentivize and Educate End-users to Recycle
Introduce Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) programs (pay for the amount you throw) to incentivize households to reduce their discarded waste and instead compost/recycle. Read this example from Massachusetts.
Use product labels to educate consumers on how packaging should be recycled or disposed of.
♻️ Invest in Advanced Recycling Technologies
Enable efficient and at-scale multi-material packaging recycling that limits the downcycling of materials.
Develop and scale recycling technologies like Pyrolysis and Gasification, where the recovery rate is higher, and the output offers similar performance as “virgin” materials.
🧴 Standardize Packaging
Explore the potential of standardized packaging solutions within relevant product verticals to enable economies of scale and enhance recyclability. (Think: what if all shampoo bottles across brands were the same shape and size?).
💰 Develop the recycled plastics economy
Support policies that encourage the buyback of recyclates. For example, the PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) in the EU will require that packaging be recyclable by design and that brands incorporate more post-consumer recycled (PCR) content into their plastic packaging.
Improve the quality of recycled plastics; Establish certification standards for recycled plastics; and restrict the use of hazardous inputs in plastic manufacturing.
Facilitate better coordination across the plastics value chain to ensure that the materials created can be recycled and recycled materials are fed back into the value chain.
Read more:
Sustainable Packaging Supplier Guide by a California based design studio, Guacamole Airplane
Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Reuse – rethinking packaging (2019)
🥳 What did you think? Let us know here.
Author Bio:
Akshita is an incoming MBA candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In her ~4 years of experience in consulting, she recognized the increasing importance of ESG & related metrics in business. Enthusiastic about building at the intersection of climate & consumer goods, she launched her sustainable fashion startup in India, propelling the second-hand fashion movement. Long term, she aspires to continue to drive a change in retail consumption habits, making brands and consumers climate-first.
I discovered The Gigaton a few months ago. As a high school science teacher with a goal of educating my students about climate change and planet stewardship, I have found this newsletter an excellent resource. I appreciate the current data, but more importantly, the information about possible solutions that can facilitate change. Many students are aware and concerned about plastic pollution, but few are aware of solutions beyond recycling. The possibility of workable actions and new economic opportunities is empowering. This is so important for a rising generation facing overwhelming challenges. Thanks for your excellent research and forward looking ideas.
I am part of a zero waste association in France and we have been fighting to put an end to plastic packaging for more than 10 years. Recycling is a failure because very few of the collected packaging is recycled in France or Europe. 75% are exported to countries that have neither the technologies nor the structures to manage these millions of tons that are dumped in their countries. We must stop producing packaging and new products, for food we must buy in bulk, even meat and customers come with their own textile or glass containers. We need to develop product reuse and sharing.