The expense of sustainable packaging explained
The reasons and theories as to why sustainable packaging is so expensive usually surround freight, transportations costs, manufacturer demands, or material shortages. But what’s the truth?
While using recycled materials is becoming increasingly more popular, particularly since the Plastic Tax bill was passed, using recycled and new materials on average is still known to be more expensive than using virgin materials.
In fact, a Telegraph article noted that sustainable packaging materials can cost 50% more than the regular kind of packaging materials. This is because most sustainable packaging materials are relatively new and do not have the same scale of production. So additional research and development investment is needed to change the machinery line, hence the added expenses. There’s also the fact that most sustainable products are also manufactured using renewable energy, and as of right now, this costs more money.
Another aspect that sometimes adds to costs are the eco certifications. These certifications are important as they show the consumer that a product or company is genuinely eco-friendly and that there is no sneaky greenwashing taking place. But in order to have an eco-certification, quality control and inspections, certification costs, administrations costs as well as marketing costs need to be paid for.
Additionally, the insufficient recycling in the UK does not help the situation. Waste collection and recycling is not co-ordinated centrally. It is instead completed by local authorities, and this results in inconsistencies and hinders closed-loop recycling of materials. The insufficiency of recycling not only slows down the progress of sustainability and makes it harder for investment in recycling facilities, but it also leads to a lack of material supply for packagers as the waste stock is lacking or of poor quality.
Whether it be boxes, tape, or voidfill, short runs of a sustainable packaging product will currently be substantially more expensive than a long run of a non-sustainable packaging product because of the costly changeover time and related costs. This is not helped by the packaging shortages we have experienced over the past year due to a number of issues that are explored in one of our previous blogs.
Despite the increasing popularity over time, there is still not enough pressure from the public by people purchasing sustainable products right now. As we know, the push for sustainable products is increasing all the time so this adds to the hope that these costs will eventually go down and with the push it’s only a matter of time until sustainable products will increase on industrial scale making them cheaper.