PACKAGING –
AN ENVIRONMENTAL
TIME BOMB

A wake-up call & a call to arms

Highlighting the effect of continuing consumption is having on our worldwide environment and proposing a radical rethink to match the shifts in e-commerce shopping habits.Proposed 2x60 min documentaries.

Introduction – Radical Reinvention required for a more Sustainable Future?

The recent broadcast on British TV of the seminal series of Blue Planet II from the BBC showing how discarded plastics are invading the biosphere, created an unparalleled (shock) wave of awareness and desire to take action. No one could refute the visible and pervasive extent to which discarded plastic products were evident in our oceans and on the shoreline. The subsequent wave of street protests under the banner of Extinction Rebellion and the media coverage of the 16 year old Greta Thunberg at the Davos conference also added to the sense that consumerism, consumption and the fundamental nature of capitalism, especially as practised by the developed nations, that is also being replicated in the emerging economies, has created stresses on our Environment that are unsustainable. Some have gone so far as to suggest that we are putting such extreme pressure on the natural order that we risk our own future. Humans it seems, through our own casual negligence combined with the law of unintended consequences, are now faced with a need to clean up our act fast and on a global scale. But the engines of commerce continue to power on and we are also being turbo-charged by the shift to an on-line world and digital consumerism that is more pervasive and even more far reaching. The rate and pace of change has gone exponential in the last 25 years – Amazon for example was established in 1994. However this piece is not designed to be a tirade against the Amazons of this world; rather that they are symbols of the fundamental shift that has been enabled by the rise of the Internet and the WWW. 

The rise of E-commerce

E-commerce is re-ordering the whole consumer experience in ways that few saw coming and even fewer predicted how fast the changes would happen. I know my own high street is no longer as fully populated with active retail outlets as it was even 5 years ago. The whole bricks and mortar retail rent and tax regime is also under severe strain as a result of the shift to on-line shopping (see Showrooming). It should also be stressed that the packaging industry is not the cause of any one of these overall Environmental problems or shifts per se; rather it has well served the evolving demands of our requirement for massive choice and our desire to consume – from cosmetics to convenience foods, electronics to fast fashion to name just a few sectors. Now the shift is very firmly towards the latest go-to shop window that is the glass screen of our computer, mobile phone, tablet device and connected TV. Here are 2 examples from the UK and USA:UK source: https://fullfact.org/economy/how-much-shopping-gets-done-online/Internet sales in general were up by just under 12% between April 2017 and April 2018. The average weekly value of internet sales was £1.2 billion in April 2018, most of which was spent in stores without a physical presence.USA source: https://www.nationmaster.com/ecommerceGrowth per categoryBased on US Census Bureau figures, we can see that as expected, electronics dominate the market, followed by miscellaneous (including office supplies, gifts, novelty and souvenirs) and clothing. Simultaneously, ranking very low, we can find categories such as food and beverages, that have a very small share of online sales. For sure, this will evolve in the coming years, as it already did in 2016 alone: the share of online sales nearly doubled in only one year.Sales will grow differently, depending on the sector, for example: the US toys market is set to grow by 19% between 2018 & 2022, while the sporting goods sector will increase by 9% only.

So how does this relate to the packaging industry?

Packaging serves many useful purposes as we know; not least of which is that it is frequently the last link and the final messaging platform in the shop window or on the shelf as we make our choices and select the product. Right until the last second the packaging forms part of the complex product branding experience and acts on our senses to ensure that we make the ’right’ choice relating to any one specific product. This is a highly simplistic summary of the purchasing experience, but consider it in the following context:(Source: the University of Southern Indiana)Out of every $10 spent buying things, $1 (10%) goes for packaging that is thrown away. Packaging represents about 65% of household trash.On average, it costs $30 per ton to recycle trash, $50 to send it to the landfill, and $65 to $75 to incinerate it. In short, packaging is seen as being in the crosshairs of this impending ‘Environmental Time Bomb’ that has only partially been addressed through recycling programmes – many of which struggle to keep up with our voracious rates of consumption. Add to this the vast and extremely complex and diverse range of the base packaging materials that are used and it could be considered easier to throw in the towel, rather than trying to sort and re-use anything potentially useful that can be recycled. But what if it was not so difficult to sort and reuse these base materials if product packaging was simplified and distilled down to its core purpose; to contain and maintain the product from its creation to delivery to the customer, simply printed with minimal statutory and operational information?

How can packaging evolve to be part of the solution?

I contend that it is the packaging industries’ opportunity to get ahead and be seen as a thought leader and an agent of change by working to enable the shift to on-line purchasing. Products are less likely to need to be packaged in multi-layered, laminated, brightly (4+ colour printed) coloured cartons or use plastic containers where the lids are made of different materials to the tubs, which in turn may themselves be covered in films made from another material again. I am not advocating bland supermarkets populated with serried aisles of unrecognisable un-differentiated products, but there is an alternative approach. By pro-actively working with the new E-commerce suppliers, especially those whose products do not appear on traditional retail shelves, the industry can supply just enough packaging, in a form that makes it easier to identify, facilitate delivery and ultimately be recycled. How do these new suppliers still get their brand and product values across to the conscious consumer? These products already rely on their on-line web presence so working with designers to create 3D visualisations (aka virtual photography) and limited run 3D printed examples is the new starting point. These digital files can in turn be used to create the necessary product simulations for their E-commerce website, accompanied by on-line video explainers/commercials and possibly even limited production runs of some reference packaging. The aim is to minimise the 10% of the cost of any item that relates to the packaging and also to reduce the cost per ton to handle the recycling processes. Additionally, significantly reduced production costs and further environmental benefits would accrue if such alternative ‘vanilla’ delivery-centric packaging was used, rather than the existing complex composite, highly finished, packaging that we discard or try and recycle today.

Changing mindsets, adapting to the new realities

I know all this sounds like heresy, especially if your business today is designed around very capital intensive printing and mechanical handling plant, but we do have to rethink and reinvent all processes in the light of the E-commerce shifts and the growing environmental imperatives.  It should also be noted that this is not the first or last time that technology has created a seismic re-ordering in what was regarded as an established process. For example; at its peak AT&T employed around 350,000 telephone operators, 98% of whom were female, but the advent of automated, first analogue now digital, exchanges have largely done away with that role.  We also have Uber today, busy redefining the traditional taxi industry. Uber has its eyes set on automating the whole driving experience as well.This ‘take, make, dispose’ economic model still largely dominates capital production. Only 14% of the plastic packaging used globally is recycled, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation reports. A worrying 40% ends its useful life in landfills, while a further third does so in fragile ecosystems such as the ocean. One estimate predicts that by 2050 there could be more plastic in our ocean than fish.Source: The World Economic Forum

In Summary

The significant added imperative that accompanies the need to fundamentally recognise and change our approach to packaging  is its additional effect on the environment – these costs are far more invasive than just the technological changes that E-commerce brings.

Embracing innovation in this imperilled environment is an essential tool for both protecting all our futures and realising new opportunities.