Anticipate the end use when you design the pack-Henning Weigand

In stories #19 and #20 I have set the focus on how to correctly apply the Reduce Reuse Recycle guiding principles in sustainable Packaging and how to set the Key Performance Indicators, ensuring that both perspectives, the CO² going into producing the pack and the waste – especially plastics waste – coming out after the pack need to be looked at in combination.

There is not one solution that resolves all: Packaging fulfills important reasons: for food, pharmaceutical products, for  for example it keeps things clean, hygienic, protects from bacteria/viruses, extends the best before date for food and with that reduces the end to end carbon footprint, it protects the environment from toxic chemicals which are required to produce batteries for electric vehicles, solar panels and medicine. Just imagine all these hundreds of millions of face masks, which were used, wrapped in plastics and thrown away through the pandemic in recent years. My impression is, that the recycling rate of those is close to zero. Referring this back to Packaging, it is important to note, that different materials and pack designs have different advantages and challenges from a sustainability perspective. As laid out in my previous stories, I differentiate between three main materials, which are plastics, paper and steel/metal. Whilst Metal and Paper have a high CO² footprint in their production process, but are slightly less problematic from a landfill/river/ocean waste perspective than plastics, Plastics in a linear economy has a slightly lower initial carbon footprint, but is a major challenge to rivers and oceans, as it disperses into microplastics and can stay in the environment for thousands of years.

Therefore, preview / anticipate closely what the key sustainability goal is, that you want to achieve, when you create your pack (best case you avoid a pack completely): Use the right material going in, use the right amount of material going in, think beyond a one-time use and make it circular for multiple rounds of reuse and ultimately recycling. For this designing it the right way is key: Circularity requires an end to end approach and thinking beyond single use, from the start including what happens to the pack after its use.

To summarize: Best case we do not need Packaging and can avoid it, but often that is not possible, and then many aspects need to be considered from the material used, to the amount of material going in all the way to thinking it from the end of use – what happens to the pack after it has been used. Henning Weigand