STEP 4
packaging & shipping
Tags, care labels, hangers, hang tags, polybags, cartons, all contribute to the waste that comes from this industry. And we rely too much on plastic for packaging or presenting a product!
Packaging
Polybags are the ubiquitous packaging of the fashion industry – something that unites brands small and large, from sportswear to luxury to fast fashion retailers. This is the clear plastic bag which covers every garment from manufacturing to retail stores or consumer homes. Hundreds of billions of polybags are estimated to be produced for the fashion industry every year. Brands should consider not only the materials used but consider the wider system used with the packaging – for example, how will it be collected and recovered at all points where waste is generated?
Bioplastics are also a new hot topic. Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. They can be great if they are also compostable, however this often requires industrial facilities that many regions do not have, and bioplastics may reduce the quality of the compost and therefore its market value. Without the necessary facilities, bioplastic packaging could end up together with normal plastics and cause problems in the recycling process. It can be confusing to understand that some plastics can be biobased but not compostable, therefore we suggest that you check out a useful diagram made by Ecoage in their article explaining this group of materials.
Recycling could be increased thanks to government subsidies, legislation, oil price rise, design for recyclability (narrower range of polymers, no coloured plastics), advances in recycling technology and in sorting (optical recognition etc.). Collaboration and cooperation comes back as being the key to achieve a circular economy.
