Measures Green Businesses Are Taking to Make Packaging Eco-Friendlier

A long time ago, opting for eco-friendly alternatives was a novel thing in the business world. Today, times have changed, and eco-friendly initiatives are now a norm. Businesses are turning green as a part of their corporate social responsibility. More organizations are calling for eco-friendly and sustainable efforts to help with the sustainability cause. 

When businesses start this initiative, they’ll come to realize that there are so many areas in business where this can be implemented. A good place to start is where a bulk of potential wasteful practices in businesses happen: the packaging from green brands themselves like TDI PACKSYS. 

If you’re keen on creating that change to make your business packaging eco-friendlier, you can also follow in the footprints of green businesses. Here are some measures they’ve been taking:

Consider Upcycling and Multiple Use Ideas

For many businesses today, single-use packaging is still very much the norm. For green businesses, however, this isn’t the case anymore. Rather than continue to have single-use packaging, green businesses have taken the change to opt for upcycling or multiple-use ideas packaging. 

For instance, glass juice bottles can be recycled and used as water pitchers or glass storage containers at home. A kids’ clothing line may opt to design their boxes as dollhouses. That way, after opening the package, the box can be used again for play – not just merely thrown away.

Ship In Smaller Packages

This second strategy applies to green e-commerce businesses which, you can learn from if your business is also an e-commerce business. When you take a look at your packaging today, are you certain it’s the optimal size for what you’re shipping? Perhaps you may not have given it that much thought, but you’re using packaging that’s bigger than it has to be. 

A good rule of thumb to follow is always to ship your items in the smallest possible packaging which fits what you’re shipping without any damage. It may only seem like a small change. But, when you consider all the items you ship in a day, choosing the right size makes a significant impact.

Switching To Returnable Packaging

As its name implies, returnable packaging means you can return the package of the goods you bought from a green business. It is a surefire way to ensure no single-use packaging makes it to the landfill. The practice can be likened to how fresh milk was delivered many years ago. A milkman would usually go house to house to deliver milk and pick up used glass bottles. Many green businesses are trying to bring back that kind of practice.

Using Recycled Materials

Recycling plants are in abundance and provide a good resource for green businesses to source out raw materials that are recycled. Applying this kind of system in a business is a great way to extend the life span of materials that have already been used until those used materials reach their end.

Patronizing Biodegradable and Compostable Materials

One of the foolproof choices when switching to more eco-friendly packaging is to patronize biodegradable and compostable materials. As you may know by now, those are the types of materials that decompose in time. They don’t fill up the landfills with no chance of composting at all. 

Here are some examples of how green businesses are switching to eco-friendlier packaging solutions:

• Supermarkets that are choosing to wrap their vegetables with banana leaves and other leaves instead of using plastic; 
• Coffee shops and restaurants opting for paper cups instead of plastic cups; 
• Brands use paper packets instead of the usual plastic packaging.

Switching To Plant-Based Packaging

Apart from the green businesses patronizing biodegradable and compostable materials, many companies have also switched to plant-based packaging. As its name implies, these are made from biodegradable sources, too, like corn, seaweed, and the best of it all: food scraps. Plant-based packaging is more evident in businesses like food delivery services. 

Initially, the switch is simply from plastic containers to paper products. Today, many green food delivery services have taken it one step further by switching again from paper products to plant-based packaging like packaging made out of cornstarch.

Conclusion

Reduce, reuse, recycle are being observed by so many green businesses nowadays. It is a change that doesn’t happen overnight. Companies that have made their way to the ranks are being classified as the green business have done so after a lot of changes and effort from their end. And, those changes started with the packaging. The ideas above should get you inspired to do the same for your own business. Take it one effort at a time, and soon enough, your business will earn its recognition too as a green business with sustainable packaging.