Truly sustainable?

Lately, there have been wide discussions that if we don’t save our planet, our next generations won’t be able to use its resources or to be able to live well on it without having to fear disasters and misery. Climate change is a fact, and nobody can argue with it. But we still talk about the methods to care for the earth without further harm.

Average consumers receive conflicting media reports. On one hand, plastic is bad, and we should eliminate it. On the other hand, replacing it with paper would cause wider logging through deforestation, while the use of glass would increase CO2 emissions in transport due to its weight. What’s more, the production of both these materials uses up enormous amounts of water and leaves a sea of sewage, which also must be considered.

We all agree that we should limit plastic used for shopping bags. Truth be told, we should cut down on using disposable products all in all, regardless of the material they are made from. While paper cups or trays do not worry the ecologists, plastic plates, straws, balloons, and other gadgets are being slowly withdrawn from the market.

But there are also a few products, including everyday items, that we cannot do without, but which it can make sense to pack in plastic. What do we do with these?

Environmental impact of glass

In the last few years the cosmetic industry made a strong shift towards sustainability. Despite the concerns raised by some cosmetologists, products made from natural ingredients and without preservatives make skyrocketing sales.

The packaging must be ‘in-tune’ with the composition. For some consumers the first association is a glass vial or a jar, preferably in an amber colour. However, when we compare them with plastic airless packaging, glass comes across worse and overall, it is not as ecological as many may think. Nonetheless, the weight of the ready product is profitable as the packaging makes it a lot heavier than the same product put in the plastic airless packaging.

A glass jar weighs around 110 grams, while the same capacity airless only 50 grams. Why is it so important?

Let’s look at how the products of daily use are transported: Finished jars leave the glass factory and head for the production plant (closures also need to get there) where they are filled and optionally transported to a warehouse, then to a wholesaler or directly to stores, alternatively to logistic centres and then to stores. The stores don’t necessarily sell everything, so expired products need to be collected and transported to the reprocessing plants. In the meantime, CO2 pours into the atmosphere. The bigger the transport and the heavier the transported goods, the more gasoline is used up.

Recycling and reusing glass

The argument for the glass-made packaging is the fact that glass can be endlessly reprocessed. But then there’s the clash between the theory and practice…

Recycling of glass seems simple. However, it is not as obvious and widely practiced as we would assume. For example, in Poland about 60% of glass is recycled, while 40% is irrevocably consumed by the construction industry (among others). What’s interesting, glass producers admit that only half of it is used. The rest of it is stored up or burnt – and so transformed into hazardous waste.

From the glass collected from the consumer, only 6 – 7% is refilled mainly by breweries and beverage bottlers which use the system of the returnable bottles. Because of the lack of the unification glass packaging is not refilled on a wider scale, but crushed and remelted, which generates costs, as well as increased water and energy usage.

The rest of the collected material – a tad more than half of the glass from the market – is made into the cullet which is only partly intended for new packaging – the rest of it, unfortunately, disappears in the statistics. In the case of clear glass on the market, the content of the recycled glass is less than 40%, in brown glass it’s less than 50%, in green glass it’s around 80%, while in the unspecified colour it’s around 52%.

The cycle of glass

Since the glass manufacturers have access to material which can be endlessly reprocessed, why do they still use so much virgin glass? The answer is very trivial: it’s cheaper, faster, and easier to produce new glass than to collect, reprocess and clean the glass from the selective waste collection. Another argument is the fact that new glass is 100% stable and crystal clear, while the reprocessed glass doesn’t guarantee it. Glass factories can’t afford to manufacture goods of random quality because they could lose clients.

Effects of paper

Cosmetics very rarely come without packaging. There are more and more products offered in bars, but they are still sold with some type of outer packaging, and when they are sent from online shops, there are even more protective layers.

A product, which in theory is packaging- and plastic-free, on average generates around 200 grams of cardboard: a box or a wrap-around, then a parcel box and box fillers to secure the product in transport. In the best-case scenario, all of it will end up in the recycling plant. But, for the paper to be qualified for reprocessing, it must be clean and dry – the earlier mentioned food trays do not fit these requirements. The same applies to all products that need to be secured for transport with cardboard.

Recycling is the best thing we can do with it. When we reprocess it for notebooks, egg boxes or very frequently for toilet paper, we give it a second life. Although the recycling process does not involve logging, it uses up hectolitres of water and may pollute the natural environment with strong bleaching chemicals. Even with mechanical or biological filters, there is no possibility to avoid harming nature.

One should also note that the mineral oils Moah (Mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons) and Mosh (Mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons) that printing inks can contain may disrupt the recycling or lower the quality of the processed pulp. Let’s not forget that paper may be recycled up to seven times, so it will eventually end up on a landfill or in a combustion plant.

Some optimistic data

In 2018 in Europe, 29.1 million tons of plastic were gathered, 42.6% of which was energetically recovered, 32.5% was recycled, and 25% ended up in landfills. Still, these results are not the best, but in comparison to 2006 the recycling increased by 100%, energetic recovery by 77%, while the amount of landfilled plastic dropped by 44%. These numbers prove we are heading towards positive changes. If we continue to work on ourselves, on sustainable product and packaging concepts, and on the recycling systems, we can continue to positively influence this development towards ever better solutions.

By 2025, the aim is to recycle 50% of plastic, which, judging by the recent numbers, seems quite attainable.

The EU legislators forecast increased recycling of other fractions: we should recycle 70% of glass and 75% of paper. Additionally, from 1st January 2025 the system of the textile collection from households should be organised.

When manufacturer and brands plan the packaging at the stage of production, all should keep in mind the guidelines of the eco-design which helps to perceive the packaging as waste that should be recyclable