To ensure greater sustainability, plastic is increasingly being replaced by other materials: cardboard, aluminum, but also special beeswax fabrics and new algae-based formulas. Here are all the news
According to Eurispes data, in the last fifty years, the production of plastic has increased by 20 times: in fact, thanks to its numerous advantages (it is light, versatile, resistant, economic), this material is widely used in numerous sectors. Too bad though that most of the plastic doesn't come properly disposed of or recycled, it strongly pollutes our seas. As the WWF tells us, every year 570 thousand tons of plastic end up in the Mediterranean, the equivalent of 33 thousand bottles per minute. And according to the European Commission, by 2050, the weight of plastics in the seas will be higher than that of fish.
The plastic emergency worries more than the economy
This creates one of the environmental emergencies largest of our time, with repercussions on the quality of the water, the state of the seabed, the survival of marine species and our health. Thanks to the campaigns carried out by environmental associations and the news we read every day from the media, in recent years we have become more aware of this problem. As emerged from a Nielsen research, in collaboration with Novamont, pollution and environmental degradation worry more about economic difficulties. Therefore, 85% of Italians say that they are shopping towards environmentally friendly brands and products, even if it means spending a little more. For 75% of the interviewees it is contemplable to pay more for a product just because it is environmentally sustainable, or because its packaging is (73%). Finally, 62% of consumers are convinced that the manufacturing companies are primarily responsible for the use of plastic as a component of packaging in the food sector. And this is not a wrong impression: every year 2.1 million tons of plastic are used for packaging and 76% of these are destined for the food & beverage sector.
Eco-friendly packaging
Consumer choices have pushed food companies to find greener solutions for your packaging, reducing the plastic, replacing it with paper or aluminum or using bioplastic, while researchers and start up they try every day to invent alternative materials to plastic, but with the same performances. And so the world of packaging is also slowly changing towards a more sustainable direction. Let's see how.
