4 Inevitable Packaging Changes After COVID-19
The global
pandemic has had a dramatic impact on perceptions of packaging. At the
beginning of the year, concerns around ocean plastics, environmental tradeoffs,
and challenging recycling economics dominated headlines and created a general
skepticism on the value of packaging and the viability of recycling. But then
the pandemic took hold and packaging has since been hailed as a key tool to
ensure health and safety.
While it’s
clear that the value of packaging is now more publicly recognized, prior
concerns haven’t gone away. During this “great pause,” the packaging industry
must reflect and prepare, ensuring that the packaging value chain offers even
more value to our environment and society — and can play a key role within the
economic restructuring our world will desperately need.
Here are
four ways we believe the packaging value chain is likely to change
post-COVID-19 and how we can prepare to help create a more robust future.
1.
Consumers may appreciate the value of packaging more but will still want a
circular packaging system.
Since COVID-19, there has been increased
media attention on the value of packaging in providing home deliveries and a
consumer preference for packaged goods. Single-use packaging is on the rise as
consumers and employers want to ensure that hygiene and the potential risk of
virus transmission is minimized. Packaging is now being recognized as a valued
tool in ensuring product and consumer protection, increased shelf life, and
safe delivery.
But the longer consumers stay at home, the
more aware they may be of their consumption and disposal patterns. With no away-from-home
waste collection, consumers are immediately faced with the visual impacts of
their consumption. Food waste sits in their kitchen bins rather than the back
of a restaurant, and product delivery comes to the home with increased amounts
of packaging normally disposed at the store and out of their sight. All the
packaging needed to deliver the food previously consumed at restaurants now
fills the consumers’ own trash and recycling containers. And they will see
higher than normal packaging materials that cannot be recycled in their
curbside bins. As consumers become more aware of the impacts of consumption and
disposal, it is not unrealistic that they may become even more environmentally
conscious and concerned by materials that cannot be recycled easily, if at all.
We may see a shift in policy away from
banning materials toward a greater emphasis on designing for the environment.
We also anticipate further consideration of how to support the expansion of
technologies and processes to ensure increased packaging recovery and or reuse.
Investment, policy support and a coordinated innovation strategy will all be
needed. This approach could offer a valued economic driver as we emerge from a
virus-induced recession.
Additionally, as consumers seek to better
manage their household waste, clear education and guidance on recycling may
take on increased relevance.
2. Our
definitions of recycling need to be expanded and harmonized.
It is widely expected that the longer our
communities are engaged in social distancing practices, the more widely
embraced home-delivery options will become. AMERIPEN has already noted that
ecommerce packaging is vastly different from that in traditional
brick-and-mortar retail. With increased vibration and movement across ecommerce
distribution chains, multi-material and flexible packaging appears to be more
effective in providing necessary product protection while minimizing shipping
weight in addition to reducing cumulative material demand as provided through
“Ships in Own Container” (SIOC) alternatives. Additionally, while meals
on-the-go were already on the rise, the potential for longer term or more
restricted restaurant access is likely to see an increase in takeout services
and the necessary packaging involved.
In many cases these scenarios use
hard-to-recycle packaging under our existing recycling systems and are often
excluded from curbside programs. In the case of foodservice packaging, while
some may be recyclable or compostable, fears around food contamination or a
lack of access to disposal services further hinders their recovery efforts.
In a post-COVID world, where home delivery is
anticipated to stay high and interest in plastics and harder-to-recycle
materials is seen as a valued health precaution, emerging recovery technologies
will be valuable. We need to establish definitions and policies that will
support recovery options for these packaging formats.
We also need to grow and encourage research
and development to identify the most effective ways to collect, sort, and
reprocess emerging packaging materials and technologies so our recovery system
is prepared for future consumption trends. Because ecommerce and take-away
service is anticipated to continue growth, and in the current absences of
mono-material alternatives with the same level of protections, we need to
identify ways to separate multi-material packaging formats for recovery or
identify new uses for mixed materials. Additionally, we need to identify the
best ways to collect food-contaminated packaging to prevent cross contamination
of other materials.
Since definitions inform goals, laws, and
regulations, an expansion of what is considered recycling and alignment amongst
states and international bodies to include more forms of recovery may encourage
innovations in this space and help support investment.
3.
Reusable packaging strategies may shift towards more industrial models.
To reduce the risk of potential viral
transmission, an increasing number of quick serve restaurants have suspended
the use of reusable containers, and states have begun to temporarily rescind
plastic bag bans. These actions have led many to publicly explore the future of
reusable packaging formats. In doing so, other industry groups have been pitted
against environmental nonprofits and sides have quickly been drawn on the value
of scientific studies and approaches.
AMERIPEN takes a different approach and see
opportunities to redefine and commercialize reusables as an economic growth
opportunity. A shift toward more industrial scale reusables, where these
formats are cleaned at industrial facilities before being placed back in use,
will continue to be an emerging area. The risks of relying on consumer cleaning
practices and viral transmission through multiple hands is decreased through
this approach.
But these programs are nascent and further
expansion will require additional support. Both policy shifts and financial
investments are needed towards advancing our ability to safely scale hygienic
processes for reusables. More research and development will be needed to help
test and trial different designs and systems for various reuse opportunities.
4.
Social distancing and transmission concerns will drive automation in hauling
and sortation.
Some communities across the country are
modifying or temporarily ceasing curbside collection and recycling programs.
These cities and towns are struggling to maintain staffing levels for collection
programs, and to maintain safe sortation processes that achieve social
distancing requirements.
Some programs that rely on smaller containers
without automated collection are temporarily closing to protect employee
health. Larger programs that are making use of carts appear to be less
affected. In recycling sortation facilities, the use of optical sorters and
robotics to help improve sortation and reduce side-by-side human labor may be a
natural fit. The use of these technologies is likely to increase as we look to
the future of recycling.
Automation can bring long term efficiencies
but there’s a cost to these investments at a time when city and state budgets
will be stretched to support economic recovery. The packaging industry has
already identified effective strategies to increase collaboration between
investors, packaging companies, and recyclers and recognizes that collaboration
will be even more imperative moving forward.
Re-imagine
and act.
As we look to the future of a post-pandemic
world, we have an opportunity to take a pause from business-as-usual to assess
and re-imagine where our structural weaknesses lay. To begin with, we need to
start seeing packaging as a system and explore the impacts one shift in the
value chain has on another. Doing so will help us pull together stakeholders
from across the value chain to continue to create a shared vision of the
packaging value chain of the future.
The creation of unified strategy that
recognizes the value of packaging but also emphasizes ways to address our
weaknesses could create economic value, get displaced workers back to work, and
strengthen our supply chains. It won’t be easy and it may not be cheap, but if
we can align the packaging value chain around a strategy that is steeped in the
principles of environmental and human health protection, we can find ways to
drive increased efficiency for the mutual benefit of our society, environment,
and economy.
Sustainable packaging is much more than just
design. It requires systems thinking, uncovering, and addressing unintended
consequences — and advance planning. Let’s continue the discussion to advance a
circular economy and meet these changing consumer needs.
Source From: Packaging Digest
Clink the below
link and connect with a Company That Offers Recyclable Packaging and a variety
of sustainable packaging solutions:
Comments
Post a Comment