Plastic packaging, landfill, biodegradable, non-biodegradable, waste segregation are complex concepts to understand that lead to more complex problems such as negative impact on the earth's ecosystem, pollution of oceans and soil and more.
The most dangerous thing is the direct impact of the increased use of plastic in packaging on global warming. If you haven't yet understood the extent of the problem, here are some statistics that will put things into perspective.
Annual plastic packaging waste can be long enough to circle the entire earth at least four times . The amount of plastic waste outweighs marine life by six to one, which is why around 100 million marine animals die every year. 50% of the plastic produced can only be used once, which means it ends up directly in the oceans, seas or landfills and we produce buy phone number list around 380 million tons of plastic every year.
We can go on and on, but I think these statistics have shed enough light on the issue for everyone to care.
Trying to replace plastic completely is a long, long journey but it definitely requires our collective attention right now . Since this is a global problem, we will need a starting point to narrow our focus. And what better place to start than the part of the problem that is growing aggressively?
We are talking about the plastic waste generated by the e-commerce industry. An industry that has been on an upward growth trend since its inception and has shown no signs of going in the opposite direction. With its growth, the plastic waste produced by fulfillment technology will also grow.
Currently, the e-commerce industry uses about 86 million tons of packaging material per year. But that is not the main problem. The main problem is that only 14% of these 86 million tons of packaging waste is recyclable.
So how do you tackle a problem of this magnitude?
Easy.
Being creative and original and innovative .
And that's what we're going to talk about in this article.
4 Innovative Ways E-Commerce and Marketplaces Are Ditching Plastic Packaging
1. Implementation of the circular economy
Circular economies are among the best solutions to address certain types of problems. They are designed in such a way that resources remain in the system as long as possible so that they can be reused and reused, thus reducing the total waste generated.
Here's how it can be implemented in t Address the growing problem of plastic packaging in the e-commerce sector : Fulfillment services, logistics Suppliers and last-mile delivery players will need to collect discarded packaging material from end-customers to reuse, recycle or even sell it.
The success of implementing this model for better waste management depends entirely on the education of end customers. They will need to be educated about the impact of their purchases on the environment. In addition, they can be encouraged to cooperate in the supply of bulk waste.
In implementing this strategy, one of the biggest obstacles e-commerce companies and markets may face is the reverse logistics which is rather a capital-intensive and detail-oriented process.
The process must be coordinated and kept transparent between customers and suppliers. According to the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment, the e-commerce industry can learn from the meal kit industry, which is a leader in developing packaging waste collection programs.