Will packaging have to pass a greener test?

Everybody hates excess packaging, but everybody also wants their items to get from A to B safely.  This means that like it or not, packaging is a necessity.  Avoiding online retailers won’t necessarily help (unless you’re talking about an online retailer which is notorious for excessive packaging).  The fact of the matter is that manufacturers have to use packaging to protect their products during transport to real-world retailers.  It’s just that retailers remove the outer layers before placing the item on the shelf.

In other words, packaging is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.  The question then becomes what we can do to minimise its impact on the environment.

Reducing packaging

To be fair, with a few notorious exceptions, both manufacturers and retailers have done a lot to reduce the amount of packaging they use and the process is clearly ongoing.  For example, there is increasing use of refill packs for everything from cleaning products to coffee and some products are now beginning to be sold loose (again) with customers able to use either their own packaging or in-store packaging.  In short, retailers in the UK are starting to go back to what used to be the standard before plastic became ubiquitous.

Reusing packaging

At a basic level, some manufacturers are now selling products in packaging which is designed to be reused on the assumption that you will only buy that product once and then buy refills which use less packaging.  Hopefully, over time, fewer and fewer people will need or want to buy the full packaging and more and more will just keep using the refills.

Recycling packaging

As a company, our timber and plywood are from sustainable sources and wherever possible we try to use recycled packing materials. We know how important it is for our environment to do what we can to use as little plastic as we can.

Going forward we expect to see more restriction on the use of non-recycled material and a bigger drive for packaging to be sustainable.

If you’d like to speak to us about preparing goods for shipping. Please contact us.