The coronavirus has only helped to underscore the
importance of plastic packaging when it comes to keeping
food contamination-free and to preserving its freshness and
usability for longer. This is particularly vital now, given
how millions of people worldwide are sheltering in place,
and doing their best to make their provisions stretch.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has also accelerated another trend
that has a major impact on product packaging - e-commerce.
Online shopping already was showing strong growth, but the
current stay-at-home phenomenon has only increased demand.
An even broader awakening to the convenience of delivery to
your doorstep may forever reshape parts of the retail sector.
In North America, it reported, the number of online orders
for web-only online retailers soared 52% year-over-year in
the United States and Canada for the period of March 22
through April 4, according to an online tracker from
marketing platform Emarsys and analytics platform GoodData.
Revenue for web-only retailers in the U.S. and Canada was up
30% year-over-year for the period.
In the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region during the same two-week
period, year-over-year transactions for web-only retailers
grew by 23%, according to Emarsys/GoodData. During the same
period, year-over-year revenue was up 19% in the region.
E-commerce growing sharply
Virus or not, retail e-commerce is rising sharply. New
York-based consumer research firm Statista Inc. said that
U.S. online retail sales of physical goods amounted to
$365.2 billion in 2019, and projects that will rise to
nearly $600 billion in 2024.
Consider also that China’s annual, 24-hour online shopping
spree known as Single’s Day - last held on Nov. 11, 2019 -
generated record sales estimated at some $38 billion.
The darker side of such a sales boom relates to the impact
on the environment of so much product packaging. China’s
State Post Bureau reported that e-commerce giants delivered
1.88 billion packages from Nov. 11 to Nov. 16 last year, an
annual increase of almost 26%. Greenpeace estimated that the
waste generated exceeded 250,000 tonnes.
The volume of packaging material used by China's e-commerce
and express delivery sectors hit 9.4 million tonnes last
year, and is on course to more than quadruple to 41.3
million tonnes by 2025 if they keep up the rate of increase,
according to Greenpeace and other non-government bodies.
Sustainability still important
So, booming e-commerce offers sales growth for key sectors
as well as greater convenience (and safety) now for many,
but it clearly comes at a cost. While public health trumps
sustainability concerns at the moment, it’s clear that the
packaging sector cannot afford to take its collective eye
off the ball when it comes to being eco-conscious.
As Dow Inc. CEO Jim Fitterling mentioned in ANTEC 2020
virtual conference on March 31: The COVID-19 crisis is going
to end, "but the air we breathe, our water and the land we
live on is here forever. And we can't afford to lose the
momentum that we've started to gain already to safeguard the
environment and help us move to a more circular economy."
Leaders in the European Union also are concerned that the
current virus-driven economic slump will cause the focus on
sustainability to wane, writing in a joint statement in
mid-April, “We should withstand the temptations of
short-term solutions in response to the present crisis that
risk locking the EU in a fossil fuel economy for decades to
come.”
These conditions offer both extreme challenges and enormous
opportunities for brand owners, consumer packaged goods
(CPG) companies, and for those designing and manufacturing
the packaging.
Multiple approaches being pursued
Such firms are exploring and advancing multiple strategies
to address these issues, including increased plastics
recycling, more reusable packaging, greater use of
biomaterials, reduced material use, and design for
circularity. Package designers also need to take into
account the different priorities for on-shelf vs. e-commerce
products. Eye-catching package design is less vital for
products sold online than in the store, but ensuring the
shipped product arrives at its destination undamaged is
vital.
Advances in these areas take diverse forms, but consider the
efforts being by CPGs to redesign the e-commerce-friendly
and highly popular –– but largely unrecyclable –– flexible
pouches to make them more eco-friendly. This mostly involves
finding a way to convert those pouches’ multilayer,
multimaterial constructions, which till now have been needed
to protect the contents from such unwelcome factors such as
moisture, oxygen, and ultraviolet light, into recyclable,
mono-material structures.
For example: mono-material pouches
Several advances are happening in this area. Austria’s Mondi
Group, for just one example, worked with several partners
for four years to develop an all-polyethyelene, stand-up
pouch for Germany’s Werner & Mertz GmbH to use with its
Frosch-brand detergent. This patented pouch features
detachable decorative panels on both sides, to help enable
easier recycling.
Another new technology, called AeroFlexx and developed by
Procter & Gamble Co., enables liquid packaging in a flexible
yet rigid package. Made with coextruded flexible film, the
product leverages compressed air to inflate specific
portions of the pouch, specifically along the edges, to
bring a degree of rigidity not otherwise possible in a
flexible package.
An AeroFlexx package uses half the plastic needed to blow
mold a traditional bottle and can be delivered as roll stock
to a filling facility, meaning it is easier to ship
throughout the supply chain. In addition to significantly
reducing plastic at the source, the Chicago-based company’s
vision is to be 100% recycle ready by 2025. While enabling
seamless, edge-to-edge artwork, AeroFlexx also features a
no-leak, self-sealing valve that offers easy, one-handed
operation by the consumer.
Loop platform touts reusability
New Jersey recycler TerraCycle Inc., meanwhile, is taking a
completely different approach with its Loop circular
shopping platform. Loop has gained support from many of the
world’s best-known brands, ranging from Unilever, PepsiCo,
and Nestlé to Danone, Procter & Gamble, and UPS.
The Loop system uses UPS to ship a variety of food,
household cleaning, and personal-care products in a reusable
and collapsible, padded container called the Loop tote. The
products are dispensed from reusable containers, which are
returned in the same reusable tote when empty. Some have
dubbed it “the milkman model,” in a nod to the old days when
milk was delivered to your doorstep in glass bottles, which
were later collected, cleaned, and reused.
“Loop,” maintains TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky, “is
an engine for CPGs to shift from disposable products that
consumers own to durable ones they borrow.” The brand
owners, meanwhile, actually own the package, which is meant
to be reused at least 100 times. The impact on packaging is
obvious – instead of trying to make the cheapest possible
disposable package or container, the brands are incented
instead to design handsome, reusable containers out of
durable materials.
Numerous companies are also investing in initiatives and
technologies to advance both mechanical and chemical
recycling, and to develop biocompatible and compostable
materials.
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CHINAPLAS is further postponed to April 13-16, 2021 to be
held in the Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Center,
PR China. Focusing on “Smart Manufacturing” , “Innovative
Materials”, and “Green & Circular Solutions”, the organizer
is expect to present 400,000 square meters of exhibition
space.
CHINAPLAS 2021 is organized by Adsale Exhibition Services
Ltd., Beijing Yazhan Exhibition Services Ltd., and Adsale
Exhibition Services (Shanghai) Ltd. and co-organized by
China National Light Industry Council - China Plastics
Processing Industry Association, China Plastics Machinery
Industry Association, Guangdong Plastics Industry
Association, Messe Düsseldorf China Ltd., the Plastic Trade
Association of Shanghai. The event is also supported by
various plastics and rubber associations in China and
abroad.
First introduced in 1983, CHINAPLAS has been approved by UFI
(The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry) since
2006. CHINAPLAS is exclusively sponsored by the Europe's
Association for Plastics and Rubber Machinery Manufacturers
(EUROMAP) in China for the 31st time. CHINAPLAS is currently
Asia's leading plastics and rubber trade fair.
