Twenty-three p.c extra waste is generated by Individuals in December than in different months of the yr, in line with a 2021 evaluation by the Middle for Organic Variety.
One main issue is the sheer quantity of packaged items being purchased. The Nationwide Retail Federation anticipates customers will set a document this vacation season, with complete spending topping $966 billion.
Whereas a few of these items would possibly find yourself being returned, re-gifted or thrown out, the packaging and wrapping they arrive in almost all the time results in the trash. If reward wrap is is shiny or sparkly, it accommodates plastic and cannot be recycled. Nevertheless, some firms are dreaming of a greener Christmas and lowering waste regardless of — and generally due to — the vacations. Right here’s how.
1. Magnificence manufacturers are lowering plastic and utilizing full-size merchandise in Introduction calendars
Historically, Introduction calendars rely down the times main as much as Christmas with a small reward or deal with behind every numbered door. They’ve become huge seasonal enterprise for firms.
Final yr within the U.S., gross sales of status magnificence merchandise between October and December made up a 3rd of the class’s $27.5 billion annual income for the yr.
Luxurious cosmetics and skincare firms usually promote their very own branded Introduction calendars as a method to drive client engagement and showcase quite a lot of their merchandise in a single go. Huge-box retailers additionally launch Introduction calendar reward units with choices from international luxurious manufacturers. More often than not, firms are promoting sample-sized variations in non-recyclable, single-use packaging.
However some firms are bucking the pattern.
In 2020, L’Occitane en Provence redesigned its Introduction calendar to interchange the internal plastic mildew with cellulose cardboard pulp and the outer plastic wrapping with paper. The objective, in line with the corporate, is to make use of 100% recyclable plastic for all packaging by 2025, lowering plastic use by 40 tons in comparison with 2019. This yr, L’Occitane is promoting a material calendar that’s absolutely reusable and in addition providing full-size merchandise in its bid to chop waste. Plus, it’s providing in-store recycling for empty packaging and is utilizing solely recyclable paper for reward purchases.
Picture courtesy of L’Occitane.
Equally, cosmetics firm Aveda has began utilizing post-consumer recycled (PCR) supplies, together with refillable bottles, for vacation units, in over 85 p.c of its bottles and jars. The corporate is making an attempt to reduce packaging and maximize the usage of recyclable and PCR supplies.
2. CPG firms are utilizing reusable packaging with fewer labels
Calvin Klein collaborated with Copenhagen-based Pure Materials Studio to create a bioplastic pouch for reward wrapping made out of Procel, which is each recyclable and biodegradable. It may also be repurposed as a small purse-like bag after Christmas.
Bodycare firm Lush has been promoting reusable, recycled reward wrap options for the previous 15 years. It calls these “Knot Wraps,” material wraps constituted of plastic bottles, classic textiles or natural cotton that may be reused as scarves or extra reward wrap. A number of designs are on provide from artists akin to Jasmine Floyd, an illustrator from Shropshire, England, and Daniel Sulzberg, a California-based artist who produced a Hanukkah-themed print.
Lush wrap knots on show in Glasgow. Picture courtesy of Lush.
Skincare firm Pacifica is promoting vacation reward units with typos. The corporate made a printing error on its 2023 vacation reward set packaging, altering the meant message “YOU ARE SO fairly” to “YOU ARE OS fairly.” Reasonably than incurring the environmental value of reprinting, the model launched a “One Typo = One Tree” marketing campaign, which planted a tree for every typo-laden bundle.
“We work to ourselves accountable and collaborate to create options that transcend our model,” Brook Harvey-Taylor, founding father of Pacifica, stated of the marketing campaign.
Picture courtesy of Pacifica.
3. Meals & beverage firms are slicing down on plastic packaging for items
In 2022, Diageo-owned liquor firm Bacardi redesigned reward packs from a number of strains — together with Bacardi rum, Gray Goose vodka, Martini vermouth, Patron tequila and Dewar’s scotch — to be totally plastic-free. The spirits big desires to take away 100% of single-use plastic from its gifting vary by the tip of 2023.
This yr, Bacardi is lowering its use of cardboard reward bins by an estimated 100 tons. The corporate is phasing the elimination of cardboard to watch how customers reply to the “bare” bottles.
Picture courtesy of Bacardi.
Will it make a dent?
Firms are combating an uphill battle. About half of all wrapping paper — about 2.3 million kilos — results in a landfill yearly, in line with this oft-cited declare. Festive wrapping papers are notoriously arduous to recycle: glitter is plastic, low cost paper is unrecyclable as a result of weaker fibers, and if the paper is metallic or coated in sticky tape, it may well’t be recycled.
However there’s motive for hope: Half of all customers responding to an IBM survey stated they have been keen to pay a premium for sustainable merchandise.
