While this is excellent news for online businesses, it also means that Americans and others worldwide are using more plastic bags than ever before in a year. Cities worldwide have enacted plastic bag bans or charges to reduce the number of bags that are used once and then discarded. But are paper or reusable biodegradable shipping mailers better for the environment? Let's compare the two so that you, as an online or physical store retailer, can decide what's best for you and, by extension, the environment.
Plastic vs Compostable Packaging: Which is Better: Recycling or Decomposition?
As global eCommerce places a greater emphasis on "green" packaging, discussions about recycling, sustainability, and overall carbon footprints are becoming more prevalent.
Let's compare standard plastic mailers to their plant-based counterparts to comprehend better the complexities of our plastic vs biodegradable packaging analysis:
- Poly mailers are commonly used
Standard poly mailers are made of polyethene, the most prevalent plastic on the planet, and can only be recycled two or three times before the inside micro polymers are broken. While this degradation prohibits them from being recycled into new mailers, they can still be repurposed into solid objects like garbage cans, furniture, and plastic lumber.
Even though recycling programmes are gaining traction worldwide, the availability of recycling services differs significantly between countries, cities, and even suburbs. It was revealed in 2018 that Amazon's flexible mailers were clogging up recycling machines in the United States because regional recycling manufacturers lacked the expertise to distribute them perfectly.
According to reports, recycling plastic saves up to 88% less energythan making plastic from natural sources, but just around 9% of synthetic is now produced from recycled plastics.
- Mailers that are biodegradable and compostable
Biodegradable and compostable mailers are not recyclable and should not be mixed with regular plastic recycling. Due to their unique chemical structure they can contaminate entire batches of waste during processing, resulting in significant volumes of material being sent directly to landfills.
Alternatively, compostable mailersshould be deposited in curbside nuclear decay or composted at home, depending on the kind of stuff. Biodegradable synthetic cannot be composted and must be arranged in a separate facility or the trash.
If you want to dispose of your bioplastic packaging properly, contact your local waste management authority and inquire about the options available to you. There may be possibilities for curbside pickup or local drop-off points to process the material and keep it out of the landfill.
Final Thoughts
We recommend that stores interested in adopting sustainable packaging conduct thorough research, collaborate closely with their suppliers, and educate their customers on proper disposal techniques. Meanwhile, Supr Pack will provide you with bespoke biodegradable mailers for your packing.
