If you want your business to be more sustainable, and if you want to save money in the process, it’s a good idea to proactively reduce packaging waste. At scale, packaging waste can be both expensive and bad for the environment, but it’s something that can be easily mitigated with the right strategies.
What’s the right way to reduce packaging waste in your business?
Go Minimal
The first and perhaps most obvious strategy is to employ minimalism in your packaging design. Together with your packaging designers, you can work on designs and processes that allow you to package your products and ship them while using less packaging. Is there a way that you can safely package this product while using less materials? For example, can you use a thinner cardboard or put the product in a smaller box? Even small changes here can add up to have a major impact, especially if your company is operating at scale.
Employ Automation
Advanced automation can also help you reduce packaging waste. Through automation, production facilities can increase precision, produce faster, and reduce errors, ultimately reducing material waste and overuse – without compromising quality.
Automation also comes with some added bonuses, including energy efficiency and overall productivity. With the help of automation, you should be able to expend less energy in your production and packaging, ultimately saving money and benefiting the environment at the same time. Additionally, automation allows you to save money on human labor while potentially increasing your output simultaneously.
Use the Right Materials
Your choice of packaging materials also makes a big impact on your sustainability and your overall packaging waste. First, you should prioritize raw materials and consider the source. Some packaging materials are inherently more sustainable than others, as they require less energy and fewer processes to produce and ship.
You should also prioritize materials that are recyclable. This way, when consumers are done with the packaging, they can recycle it and allow it to be reused for other processes or products. Also, if your packaging is recyclable, any wasted materials can be reintegrated into your packaging processes.
As an alternative, you can choose materials that are biodegradable. These types of materials naturally degrade over time, reducing their potential impact on the environment.
Recycle What You Don’t Use
Naturally, your packaging processes will result in some waste. But you may be able to recycle or reuse that waste. For example, if you invest in an industrial shredder, you can shred excess materials and use them as filler to reconstitute them into a material that you can use for other packaging needs.
Experiment
It’s a good idea to experiment with different techniques, designs, and processes to see what’s most effective. Keep a close eye on your waste rates so you can see if you’re trending in the right direction and make further adjustments accordingly.
Train and Educate Your Staff
Effective employee training and education can also help you minimize packaging waste. When your employees are competent and confident in what they do, they’ll be more likely to follow processes correctly and reduce the total amount of packaging they waste.
Why Reduce Packaging Waste in Your Business?
Why should you bother with all these strategies, especially when some of them may introduce new steps to follow or change processes you’ve already come to rely on?
- Cost reduction. One of the biggest benefits of minimizing packaging waste is cost reduction for your business. If you waste fewer materials, you’ll waste less money. If you use fewer materials in your product packaging, you’ll also spend less money. Overall, this can help your company operate much more cost-effectively and, therefore, profitably.
- Convenience and accessibility. Don’t forget that improving packaging sustainability leads to higher convenience and accessibility for shippers, distributors, and even consumers. Less packaging waste often means lighter, more portable products – and much easier packaging removal and disposal.
- Environmental benefits. Reducing packaging waste is one of the best ways your business can benefit the environment. Reducing waste and improving energy efficiency means shielding the environment from the harmful repercussions of industrial processes.
- Reputational benefits. Increasingly, consumers care about sustainability. If you make a concentrated effort to reduce packaging waste and improve the sustainability of your product packaging, your reputation will improve and you’ll likely see increased sales. This is especially important if your target audience cares deeply about environmental causes.
There’s no question that reducing packaging waste in your business is the right strategic move. It can save you time, save you money, improve your products, and benefit the environment at the same time. Even better, there are many different strategies that can help you succeed in this area, and most of them are relatively inexpensive or straightforward.
