Innovative Eco-Friendly Packaging for 2016

A major theme for 2016 is innovative eco-friendly packaging. With a renewed global focus on our planet’s diminishing resources, companies, both large and small, have started to incorporate innovative eco-friendly packaging techniques into their day-to-day operations. The following packaging ideas are exemplary ways to diversify packaging techniques while maintaining a high standard of eco-friendliness.

Happy Eggs

Designed by Maja Szczypek, a Polish designer, this creative container for keeping your eggs fresh and safe is one of the most innovative eco-friendly designs of 2016. The packaging is created using a unique process. A heated press is used to gently mold the hay into an egg-carton shape. The natural stick-togetherness of the hay allows for the carton to be self-sustaining, without the use of harmful binding chemicals or non-biodegradable plastic. Different colored, biodegradable paper labels brightly announce how many eggs are in each box. Boxes come in sizes of four, six, and 10 eggs per container.

 

 

 

Paper Water Bottle

The paper water bottle is an innovative eco-friendly packaging trend that has taken 2016 by storm. Plastic accounts for approximately 10
percent of the world’s total unrecyclable waste. Plastic water bottles themselves have a dismal recycling rate of only 14%. Inventor Jim Warner wanted to help solve this problem using innovative eco-friendly packaging. Warner, after many trials, finally perfected the formula for a biodegradable water bottle. Using sugar cane, bamboo, wheat straw, and bagasse, which is the fibrous remains of sugar cane after it has been stripped of its sugary constituents. This is all mashed into a pulp and then hardened into a water bottle mold which includes a similar paper cap for convenience.

The Body Shop

Recently, the ever-popular Body Shop has started to make some drastic changes in the materials used to package its delicious smelling body products that range from lotions to bath oils. The Body Shop has partnered with a company known as Newlight Technologies to produce a plastic that is comprised of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This plastic will now be used to make bottle lids for the bottle lids and containers of the consumer-favorite body butters. The pair estimate that by 2020, this innovative eco-friendly packaging will most likely reduce the Body Shop’s plastics made from oil by at least 70 percent.

This revolutionary plastic is created using methane gathered from farms and natural gas refineries. The methane is then collected in a 50-foot reactor in which special enzymes absorb the carbon and oxygen, which turns the particles into a solid plastic. Then, that solid plastic is melted down and dried into pellets that can be shaped into whatever a company should need. This plastic has been named “AirCarbon,” a fitting epitaph based on its origins.

innovative eco-friendly packaging

Innovative eco-friendly packaging is “in” for 2016. The above organizations are leaders in the packaging industry by taking a stand against wasteful packaging practices. When possible, make the choice to be a catalyst in your own community by selecting innovative eco-friendly packaging as it applies to your life.