Our argument for reusable packaging with help from the Waste Hierarchy.
The waste hierarchy describes the best through to worst use of materials. We’ll just look at it as it relates to food packaging.
Prevention
Prevention is the most preferred option as it’s about completely avoiding or reducing the use of raw materials that become waste. Dining in at a cafe or bringing your own reusable cup or food containers can prevent the use of single-use packaging.
Reuse
Reuse closely follows and describes materials and products that retain value and usefulness for a period of time. SammyBags fall into this category because you can wash and reuse them over a period of years.
Recycling
Recycling involves converting materials back into something useful at their end of life. If grease or food residues are present on single-use food packaging, it contaminates the recycling stream and prevents their recycling, resulting in their diversion to landfill. Recycling is a very energy intensive process and often consumes more energy when compared to producing new products.
Recovery
The term “Recovery” describes the process of recovering value (energy or raw resources) from materials considered as waste. For example, incinerating waste produces heat, and capturing this heat allows for the recovery of energy. The other options here include: anaerobic, gasification and pyrolysis.
Disposal
Disposal is when waste after the other four steps still remain and is sent to landfill. This the least preferred option, however it is also where packaging with food residues or PLA and PFAS coated food packaging ends up.
So in summary you can see how single use packaging is a linear product categorised by the Cradle-to-Grave product lifecycle. As we move towards a more circular economy we need to Rethink and Design Out our dependance on single use packaging. We believe SammyBags products are a good example, as they last years – not minutes, raising the bar of effectiveness and longevity.
SammyBags makes packaging reusable.
If you’d like to share your thoughts regarding reusable packaging please use the contact form here.
Ngā mihi,
David, Sammy & Pieta – The SammyBags Team.