As sustainability becomes an increasingly pressing issue, more and more businesses are looking for ways to reduce their environmental footprint. One area where this is particularly important is packaging.

Every year, billions of plastic containers and other packaging items end up in landfills and oceans, causing significant harm to the environment. One solution to end the waste issue problem is refillable packaging — a trend quickly gaining momentum in many industries, especially in the cosmetic industry.

A consumer’s experience with a product starts with its packaging. It’s the first thing they see and where they can find information about the product. According to one of the largest commerce platforms, Shopify, “The market for e-commerce goods has changed drastically over the last decade. As a result, the demand for product packaging solutions to handle shipping, logistics, and creating a unique customer touchpoint has grown alongside it, with a total market value of $61.55 billion expected by 2025.”

The time to support STEM education is now. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but goes far beyond school subjects in the face of solving challenges worldwide. STEM fields lead innovation, sustain the growth of the economy, and raise social awareness — but it wouldn’t be possible without the people who study STEM, specifically researchers who are currently pursuing graduate and doctorate degrees.

In the packaging industry, specific levels of packaging determine how products are packed and shipped. If you attend a packaging expo, individuals will ask if a certain packaging product is primary, secondary, or tertiary, and it can be helpful to know the differences between these levels of packaging. So what are the levels of packaging?

Let’s start with an unboxing experience to showcase the levels of packaging from how most consumers interact with a product delivered to their home!

No matter the size of your holiday gatherings this year, you’ll probably be going through a lot of paper products and plastic. As presents and letters make their way to family and friends via mail and package delivery, it’s time to make a plan on how to keep your holidays sustainable and recycle packaging waste the right way.

If you’re mailing out Christmas cards or wrapping up presents to ship across the country, consider the materials used to wrap your gifts, construct your Christmas cards, and keep your holiday gifts safe on their journey to your loved ones.

A not-so-pretty statistic from the beauty industry is the thousands of tons of plastic waste produced and discarded by production every year. By design, beauty packaging is made to be striking on shelves while still being as temporary as the products inside. But all of that plastic waste has to go somewhere, and whether it ends up in a landfill or the ocean, it will remain there exponentially longer than its use cycle.

Bamboo, when used as a material for packaging, offers a high level of durability along with versatility. Bamboo has a rapid growth rate, making it an abundant and biodegradable renewable resource. This giant grass-type plant functions in many capacities from fabric to food to flooring.

In order for consumers and businesses to develop a greener world, it’s important to know how to recognize sustainable packaging. Over the last decade, socially responsible companies have been creating a strategy for becoming environmentally conscious from their processes to their packaging. While many green buzzwords exist, learning to actually recognize green practices and packaging can be difficult.

When it comes to biodegradable packaging, engineers and manufacturers have the added challenge of creating aesthetically pleasing packaging while adhering to environmentally friendly standards.

Biodegradable packaging is susceptible to trends in design, materials, and so much more. As manufacturers try to rush to the front of the pack, here are some of the trends that have caught our attention in 2018 and 2019.

Sustainable packaging is a buzzword in today’s consumer world. As more and more data shows that the Millennial generation cares about how their purchases are packaged, businesses need to prioritize sustainable packaging now to stay ahead.