The responsibility of the environment is a team job. It embraces raw material suppliers, producers, packaging, converting and logistics experts, wholesalers, retailers and consumers.
It’s a new century so it’s time for some new thinking. Let’s start with a large dose of realism. Much of what we hear about sustainability is questionable. Legislative targets set by governments may have a role to play but it is doubtful whether they represent the final solution to the problem.
“It’s more important to optimise the use of resources - materials and energy - in the first place,” says director of the London-based Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment, Jane Bickerstaffe. “It is generally accepted that climate change is the single greatest challenge that we face and we believe that effective packaging makes a substantial contribution to the fight against it.” Companies now go beyond the Packaging Directive’s narrow focus on end-of-life waste and recovery and consider the complete supply chain including energy use, transport and product wastage. An advantage of considering the whole supply chain is that it opens the potential for finding more resource efficient ways to meet the needs of society.
There is little doubt that the packaging of luxury goods will be one of the last outposts to fall under the spell of the green lobbyists.
In the cosmetics sector, environmental issues have mostly been framed around ethical considerations; ie centred on the product and ingredients rather than the packaging. Additionally, the perceived sliding scale of luxury attached to cosmetic items means clients are nervous about whether using recyclable materials will compromise their brand.
Design Bridge director Nick Verebelyi regards the cosmetics and perfumery sector as the last bastion of self-indulgence. “Since design works hand in hand with enjoyment, the concept of less is more just does not work,” he says. “Perhaps, it is more important that designers, retailers and brand owners focus their energies on packaging reduction and sustainability in the high volume sectors such as fresh foods in a bid to offset areas like perfumery and cosmetics where packaging is such an overt feature of the consumer purchase and is integral to their enjoyment of the product.
“Glass containers may be heavier but they provide a far more fulfilling pack, which unfortunately represents the baggage that has to accompany a pleasant fragrance. Such luxuries are as valuable as the air we breathe and they are eminently recyclable. I do feel that cartons are sometimes overused in this category and don’t always feature positively in the brand experience. I dare say there are more minimal ways of covering and branding the primary pack - cosmetic dispenser or perfume bottle - than shoving everything into a box.”
Taking a lead
Other designers tend to agree. “Clients right now seem extremely confused about the extent of consumer desire for recycling in this sector,” says PDD’s Diane Fox-Hill. “At every conference I have attended in the last year the subject of sustainability is talked off as the question of whether brands should lead or follow consumer demands on environmentalism.”
So while it appears right and proper that brands like The Body Shop can bang its environmental drum, would Chanel or Guerlain customers find their products less persuasive if less opulently packaged? The higher you go up the luxury scale, the more at odds the environmental message appears. Perhaps wit is the solution.
“I would like to commend Cargo Cosmetics for showing us that a conscience is possible,” continues Fox-Hill. “Cargo has recently introduced a PLA lipstick case called PlantLove. As PLA would not be a first choice for rigid packaging, producing a lipstick tube of PLA is a tour de force. Cargo also did some thinking about the box as the cardboard packaging which holds the lipstick is made of biodegradable flower paper which is infused with seeds, which when moistened and planted should grow into a cornucopia of flowers!To my mind this is taking considerations of being environmental to a new level - caring, thoughtful, as well as fun and witty. It cuts to the very heart of the problem where cosmetic brands are concerned - that using less opulent materials means consumers will feel short changed in some way.
“As an agency we constantly struggle with the question of where responsibility lies,” she adds. “Is it our job to lobby clients to consider more friendly materials? Or do the commercial realities of our client briefs generally preclude us having within project or breakout conversations where we can suggest truly alternative materials? So while suppliers are coming up with new material options, really it is up to the brand owners to think creatively about these materials and use them in a considered way. Wit, Cargo-style, is of course optional.”
Bearing in mind Bickerstaffe’s comments, the materials supplier also has a strong role to play. For a company like Stölzle-Oberglas environmental concerns are already a daily part of the making of glass bottles. The key objective for Stölzle-Oberglas is the production of crystal clear glass, the S8 custom designed bottle produced for Oriflame being just one example. To achieve such clarity, impurities need to be kept to a minimum. Contamination by iron, for instance, produces a greenish cast to the finished glass. Purification of impurities requires treatment with chemicals, which can be costly both economically and environmentally. So Stölzle-Oberglas sources the whitest and purist sand for its glass from Holland and Belgium. The necessity for control over impurities means that the only recycled glass used by the company is that produced in its own factory. Manufacturers of food and beverage bottles and jars can import waste glass as they do not need to seek the same degree of visual perfection sought by flaconnage customers, according to the company’s group sales director for perfumery and personal care, Mark Devonald Smith.
Stölzle-Oberglas does recycle its own waste glass however, and its bottles contain 15-18% of recycled glass. Such recycling conserves both energy and ingredients. And there are other benefits. Including recycled glass brings down the overall melting temperature, which saves on energy. It also improves the malleability of the glass. Stölzle-Oberglas is in the business of making beautiful shapes and values the greater control over shaping and the distribution of glass in the mould such recycling brings.
Organic decoration
With decoration, environmentalists can applaud the recent growth in organic rather than ceramic spraying and printing. This uses organic ingredients and the decorated bottle is cured at a temperature of around 150oC rather than fired at around 580oC-590oC, a considerable saving of energy. Even greater savings will be achieved with the advent of UV rays for instant curing of the inks, a process which is currently under development and is eagerly awaited.
Ceramic printing becomes a part of the glass. Organic printing meanwhile, requires more careful handling but can achieve the whole colour spectrum, allowing designers to achieve spectacular effects. For Next’s fragrance Mi Amor, Stölzle-Oberglas sprayed the custom designed bottle with a graduated translucent red.
European legislation regarding the proportion of metal in decoration means that gold and silver effects now have to be produced by foil blocking, an expensive process that still proves attractive to designers.
Steep rises in the price of gas and electricity have forced companies to save energy wherever possible. This January, Stölzle-Oberglas relit a furnace at its Knottingley factory that has undergone a major rebuild. The modern technology used with the existing furnace framework has resulted in significant savings in power consumption.
A further development at Knottingley will be the installation of a filter chimney at a cost of £3-4m. Requested by the local council, it will filter out dust produced by the glass making process and so improve the environment.
Plastic project
Plastics, particularly PET, have an uphill battle to climb but UK beauty retailer Boots has participated in an initiative to encourage the adoption of more sustainable PET packaging for a broad range of its personal care products. The company completed a year-long trial funded by the Waste and Resources Action Programme to explore the potential to close the recycling loop for PET packaging, currently one of the most popular forms of packaging for the beauty industry worldwide.
According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), the findings from the trials were “very positive”, showing that recycled PET can meet the technical, commercial and safety requirements demanded by the retail sector, as well as meeting consumer demands. “This is a major breakthrough for plastics recycling in the UK,” says WRAP ceo Jennie Price. “This type of commitment from major brand names signals a growth in demand for recycled PET, which will in turn stimulate UK recycling capacity and will also show consumers that there is a strong home market for the plastic they recycle, helping to motivate them to recycle more.”
For its trials Boots used 30% recycled PET in its high profile Botanics range of toiletries. The initiative was incorporated into the company’s own packaging manufacturing base in Nottingham where the bottles for the Botanics range of shampoos and conditioners are produced.
“We chose Boots’ mainstream Botanics range for the trial as both bottles and product are manufactured at our factory,” says Boots’ sustainable development manager Andrew Jenkins. “This enabled us to rigorously evaluate the use of recycled PET at each stage of the supply chain, whilst developing our expertise in this area. Feedback has been positive from production and customers alike.” Boots has now produced over four million bottles for Botanics and other ranges and they will be used increasingly.
Graham Packaging, which supplies plastic containers for a variety of personal care items, has sped up the introduction of lighter weight PET bottles without having to change design or sacrifice any performance characteristics. “The bottom line is that we’re achieving overall light-weighting without any loss of physical function,” says director Toshi Kojitani. The new bottle has exactly the same look, height, diameter and footprint as the current version. Our tests and a trial run on a customer’s filling line demonstrate that there’s no difference in performance from the current container.”
Ashok Sudan, Graham Packaging’s executive vp adds that the technology was developed to allow customers to make the switch without disturbing their brand image or filling line set-up.
Borealis, a plastic packaging provider for the cosmetics industry, has created a new pail system that is said to significantly shorten production cycles, whilst also benefiting the environment and reducing packaging costs. The pails, which are suited to family sized toiletry products, have been created with a new polypropylene - BH374MO - which has a higher than normal melt flow rate that enables the pail packaging to be easier and faster to process.
The company says that these functions create greater storage and transport benefits for the packaging industry. The material is reputed to be lightweight yet have high stiffness and good anti-static performance that allows for ease of travel, providing manufacturers with processing efficiency.
Global cosmetic packaging company Vitro cleaned up in the 2006 WorldStar packaging competition, winning the most awards for a single company in the health and beauty sector including the prize for excellence.
Vitro entered three glass perfume bottles in the competition. The three containers - Be Magic, Irresistible and Sexy Red - won awards because of their ability to protect and preserve the contents, graphic design, manufacturing quality, materials used, ingenuity and, most importantly, recycling characteristics. Vitro uses only 100% recyclable materials for its packaging concepts.