GREEN PACKAGING FOR SUSTAINABILITY COMPLIANCE

There's no doubt that a cultural shift is underway, a move towards saving the planet for future generations, and everyone is now striving to balance social environmental and economical concerns. While most are far from reaching a perfectly sustainable world, many companies and governmental institutions are making efforts in this directions. Sample of this is the replacement of plastic bags for paper bags in many cities and the use of materials such as hemp, recycled car tyres and organic cotton in the manufacture of shoes and purses. In the chemical world a lot of interest and effort is being placed towards the actual chemical ingredients in a formula, however the packaging is as important if not more since they are mostly plastics which have long environmental life. Now days many plastics, specially thermosetting are being substituted by aluminum or other more recyclable materials. Also many packaging are being produced from vegetable raw materials like the case of the developments from Nature Works that work from corn stock. For more details go to: http://www.natureworksllc.com/ . Also some companies like Wall Mart are requesting suppliers to meet criteria based on sustainability and recyclable parameters. For more information on green packaging see: http://www.beautypackaging.com/, April/May 2008 issue.
On this same line of events, the DuPont awards for packaging innovation in 2008 went GREEN, awarding a number of notable achievements in sustainable packaging. One of the distinguishable achievements was awarded to the "powerhouse" produce package of Kiwi fruit. The natural package is assembled with a vacuum-thermoformed tray made of fibers from a palm tree from Earthcycle Packaging that is overwrapped in a transparent film of regenerated cellulose from Innovia Films. To see more go to the May edition of www.packworld.com .