Every year the world produces approximately 311 Megatons (MT) of plastics, with an ever increasing demand, and it is estimated this quantity will quadruple by 2050.
78MT of this plastic production can be attributed to single use plastic packaging. Of this plastic packaging, only 5% is currently being recycled successfully, this means that every year we lose 95% of all plastic packaging produced. That is 74,100,000 kilograms.*
Although we are reliant on governments and consumers to control the waste stream, a floral packaging company can make a difference, however small.
Half of the waste for consumers goods that the world produces, is actually generated during production, so before the products even reach the consumer.**
This is called industrial or pre-consumer waste and is caused by a combination of production techniques, limitations and customer/consumer demands.
One might wonder why we only use 70% recycled content in our packaging, and not a full 100%.
In order to make functional packaging, that does not fall apart and become useless, we still need a small amount of virgin material to make the product work. We are continuously working on increasing the recycled content, and hopefully we will reach that 100% in the near future.
However, 70% is already a lot if you think about we could cut down those yearly 78 Megatons by more than half.
* Ellen MacArthur Foundation, New Plastics Economy, (2016).
** Paul Hawken, Drawdown, The Most Comprehensive Plan ever proposed to reverse Global Warming, (2017).
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