Americans are sick and tired of plastics. The country that invented the drive-thru, Saran wrap, and the plastic water bottle is quickly falling out of love with the polymer as it clogs landfill, pollutes rivers, and drives up greenhouse gas emissions. According to one Ipsos poll, 71% of Americans now want to buy products which use as little plastic packaging as possible, while 55% want single-use plastics to be banned altogether.
Perfect timing then for a UN treaty on plastic pollution. As world leaders gather in New York this week for the ‘Summit of the Future’, negotiators will work to finalise a legally binding international instrument on plastics. Central to this agreement will be measures to reduce the overall production of plastic packaging to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.
This initiative reflects similar steps being taken by national governments around the world. Earlier this year, the White House announced a strategy to phase out single-use plastics from all federal operations by 2035. The EU is also close to finalising its legislation to ban certain single-use plastics from 2030.
But who should bear the responsibility for breaking the US addiction to plastic packaging? Every year, Americans purchase 50 billion plastic bottles just for water. What can we use to replace these?
Well, going back to the Ipsos poll, 83% expect manufacturers and retailers to shoulder the burden of reducing, reusing, and recycling plastic packaging. This is likely to be more impactful (and practicable) than asking 333 million Americans to carry a tote bag and metal canteen at all times.
The good news for businesses, though, is that it pays to be green. According to McKinsey, about half of consumers are willing to pay 3% more for products with sustainable packaging and 12% are willing to pay up to 10% more. Retailers that find more sustainable packaging options will not only stay ahead of regulation but also gain an advantage in the market.
So how do we replace the bottles? Reusable packaging certainly has a role to play, as acknowledged in plans for the UN plastic treaty and EU packaging regulations. However, mass reusable packaging infrastructure is cumbersome and expensive to implement, and reusable glass bottles aren’t ideal for outdoor or on-the-go settings.
Recycling is also part of the solution but will require massive scaling up. Currently less than a third of those 50 billion bottles will be recycled each year. Recycling also has little bearing on the greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production, which in 2019 totalled 1.6 billion tonnes globally – more emissions than the entire country of Brazil.
So what else is there? The answer may already be in your fridge. Cartons, made almost entirely from paperboard, are best known to Americans from the juice and dairy aisle but are also used in other countries for water, soap, laundry detergent, and even mouthwash. Cartons are fully recyclable and offer the same convenience and functionality as plastic bottles. They currently contain a very small amount of plastic in the form of a protective barrier and optional screw cap but have a far smaller carbon footprint than plastic and even glass bottles.
A 2021 Life Cycle Analysis study by Anthesis in the USA and Canada found that a half-gallon plastic bottle of milk or juice contributes 349g of CO2 equivalent. Assuming a similar carbon footprint for water, those 50 billion bottles generate 17.45 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.
The same study found that cartons made from paperboard generate 60% fewer emissions. So, if every water bottle were switched for a carton, we would avoid 10.5 million tonnes of emissions – equivalent to the energy usage of 1,356,269 US homes or the same volume of emissions that can be absorbed by 12 million acres of forest.
This is of course a rough calculation, but it demonstrates the scale of the impact that businesses and consumers can have, using a readily available solution that doesn’t require massive behavioural changes.
Of course there is still scope for improvement and innovation – not least in finding an alternative material for cartons’ protective barrier. However, as global governments finally align on the need to reduce plastic production, businesses and consumers at least have tools at their disposal to meet these goals.
Thomas Körmendi is the CEO and President of Elopak, a global provider of carton-based packaging solutions. Since joining Elopak in 2018, Thomas has guided the company through its listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2021, as well as helping Elopak to expand into exciting new markets such as India and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Under Thomas’ leadership, Elopak joined the UN Global Compact as a participant member and was one of the first companies to set targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Prior to joining Elopak, Thomas was CEO at the product traceability company Kezzler and has also previously served as chief executive of Relacom Group and Cardo Flow Solutions. Originally from Denmark, Thomas has a Master of Science in Economics from Copenhagen Business School.
