What are Biodegradable and Recyclable Packaging Material?

With increasing awareness about the environment, more and more people are now switching to eco-friendly packaging materials. Consumers expect the brands to focus on biodegradable packaging materials so that they can also contribute towards a green environment. This is the reason why the packaging industry is now waking up to the needs of the customers and delving into eco-friendly packaging.

Packaging touches almost every part of our daily lives. From food to other daily-life items, the list of our packaging materials is an extensive one. Things like corrugated boxes, bubble wrap roll, etc. have started to emerge to meet our packaging needs, especially when we are moving out and using removal boxes. 

There are a plethora of biodegradable packaging materials available in the market. Here is a list of some of them.

Paper and Cardboard

Paper and cardboard are the most easily available packaging materials in the market. They are also biodegradable and can be reused and recycled. Several companies offer packaging using recycled paper. This shows that paper that is once recycled can be used again for packaging.

Corn Starch

Corn starch is generally used for packaging food items. This is because packaging made from corn starch is easily biodegradable. Corn starch packaging causes little or no harm to the environment and thus is suitable to pack item meant for takeaway. A packaging material made from starch plastic is one of the best biodegradable packaging materials.

Bubble Wrap

Bubble wrap roll is one such thing that is widely used for packaging. Companies are finding new ways to make this packaging material eco-friendly. Use of biodegradable plastic for the manufacture of bubble wraps is changing the way we see traditional packaging. The advantages of using green bubble wraps is that they decompose within 12-24 months in a landfill and also provide a cushion to the items being packed.

Biodegradable Plastic

Biodegradable plastic forms a major part of the packaging industry. Their share in the packaging market is more than 60% as they are used in making plastic shopping bags, envelopes, disposable cutlery, etc. Biodegradable plastic is the best alternative to traditional plastics as they start decomposing once exposed to daylight. 

With these packaging materials in the market, a new kind of packaging revolution has begun to take place. You should look for the following things when deciding which biodegradable packaging material to be used. The pollutants released in the manufacturing of a certain material cannot be chosen as it releases toxins into the environment and is not responsible towards the environment. 

When you buy or use any recyclable packaging material, you need to be sure enough that you would be recycling that packaging material. If you know that you won’t be using that packaging material in future again, then you are contributing immense waste material to the environment.

Biodegradable packaging materials can be easily disposed of without any worries of increasing the amount of waste on earth. Once disposed, they decompose easily under normal environmental conditions.

Our Environment and Plastic Bags

A plastic bag or plastic pouch is used for packaging purpose for many different purposes. Nowadays the use of plastic bags is increasing day by day. This is due to them being less costly, easy to carry, light in weight and able to hold liquid, solid and gels. Plastic can even be used to create closed system which helps in keeping food fresh for long periods of time. 

Plastic bags are reusable and can be used again and again, which also keeps them being a non biodegradable substance. Plastic is globally consumed on a very large scale but after some year’s people are starting to notice some big issues associated with plastic bags. These issues are as follows…

Garbage: Plastic bags are cheap and so easy to use-n-throw which results in a large percentage of garbage belonging to our plastic. Plastic is an artificial product which is not easy to get degradable,  thus it also makes a cover over degradable things which affect the normal cycle. 

Animal Life:  Animals are either vegetarian or non vegetarian, but not a single type of animal has ability to digest plastic. As plastic is a product which is  developed chemically.  After reaching the stomach plastic will stay there as it is not digestible, and with time it will affect the digestion and then may lead to death. Birds and street animals do try to eat garbage and a unintentionally intake plastic will most likely result in death.

Environment: Global warming, plastic is one of the major causes of global warming this can be explained with the diagram seen above. From the diagram we can predict how dangerous plastic bags can be.

So what’s the solution you might ask? Ban plastic bags completely is a difficult task because we are using it widely in below fields.

Medical: Most of the medical equipments come in plastic bags to protect them from various rays and bacteria. So we are using plastic bags packaging for medical purposes for a long period of time.

Food: In the food industry plastic bags helps in the transportation of milk products, vegetables, package food, and many more things for retail purposes. Bulk transport plastic is commonly used also. 

Construction: Earlier to transport construction materials like plastic was not used which cause losses. As in extreme whether plastic can protect raw materials from damage and can also allow easy movement and store facility

Packaging: For transportation and packaging purposes plastic bags can be used. This helps in damage free and the transportation of products, this also works in export and import of products as plastic is highly durable.

As it’s not possible to stop using plastic bags in above fields and there are so many other fields where plastic is used widely. An alternate solution can be good quality plastic or recyclable plastic or organic shopping bags of good material which we can use over and over again, these can also be seen as an accessory! If you use standard plastic which can be recycling further you can save earth and try to reduce global warming. Many countries have already banned cheap quality plastic and switched to environment friendly plastic bags which we will all benefit from. So come on, do your bit and think next time you are chucking away your plastic bag.