Sustainable Packaging in 4 Steps

Alpha Packaging shares how they’ve developed sustainable solutions for cannabis packaging.

Packaging is so common these days that it’s nearly invisible. Everything comes in some sort of package — so much so that we often mindlessly throw them away without really thinking about where the packaging came from or where it is going.

With packaging as prolific as it is, it’s crucial consumers and companies alike start to question the source of their packaging and how it can be made more sustainable. According to Ponder Seattle, there are nearly twice as many producers/processors as there are dispensaries in Washington state, resulting in competition for limited shelf space. Sustainable packaging might be a key to standing out.

Alpha Packaging is a manufacturer of bottles and jars for the cannabis industry and others. All of their packaging is manufactured with sustainability in mind, and their solutions can be broken into four categories.

100% Recycled Content

First, recycling is one of the most common sustainability strategies. While it’s important for individual consumers to participate in recycling, it can have a much bigger impact when utilized by large manufacturers. For instance, Alpha Packaging makes their bottles and jars with up to 100% post-consumer resin (PCR). By utilizing recycled HDPE and PET resins, Alpha Packaging provides brand owners a sustainable packaging solution that performs just as well as “virgin” plastic.

Recyclable Resins

Recycling as a consumer can be tricky. Figuring out what products are recyclable in your personal community recycling program is a difficult task. To clear up confusion, many brands use the phrase “recycle-ready,” which means their packaging is accepted by most community recycling programs. It also means there is a viable recycling stream that can capture the resin, giving it a useful second life. In Alpha’s case, 98% of the bottles they manufacture are monolayer PET or HDPE plastic, which are SPI codes 1 and 2 respectively, and are the most widely recycled plastics in the world.

Plant-based Resins

Of course, recycled content isn’t the only option when manufacturing packaging. Plastics made from plants, also known as “bioresins,” reduce or eliminate the amount of petrochemicals required to make resin. As an example, in the case of plant-based HDPE, Alpha has a source for an HDPE bioresin that is made entirely from sugar cane byproduct. The bio-HDPE is chemically identical to traditional HDPE, but the feedstock is sugar cane instead of petroleum. In the case of PET, the most common plant-based formulations use renewable plant resources to replace the monoethylene glycol (MEG) component of polyethylene terephthalate. Lightweighting

For both sustainable and financial reasons, the goal for any brand owner should be to minimize packaging as much as possible while still ensuring their products are protected. Lightweighting primary packaging is a smart way to reduce the amount of raw materials being used for each package. In practice, Alpha’s Design & Engineering teams work with their customers to find the optimal gram weight that balances performance and sustainability, working to find the lightest weight possible. In some cases, they’ve been able to reduce the total gram weight of a bottle by up to 29% without negative effects on performance. ❖