A plastic bag lasts forever – or at least it seems like it – a normal plastic bag is estimated to take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, if ever at all. Who has time for that? Without an alternative, people throw away nearly 100 billion plastic bags, or 3 billion pounds of plastic each year. That is a lot of unnecessary waste; so what’s the solution?

Green Genius, a new biodegradable trash bag is as strong as regular trash bags, but it’s also environmentally friendly. Green Genius LLC was founded in 2009 to develop innovative green solutions to promote a cleaner environment, with less plastic. The Green Genius trash bag uses EcoPure, an organic additive that causes plastic to biodegrade.

The Green Genius offers an eco-friendly option for people everywhere.

We all know slimmer packaging equals less packaging waste and an effective way to reduce your carbon footprint.  But did you know that efficient packaging can also save money?

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer saved $3.5 million in transportation costs last holiday season because of efficent packaging for toys.  The company used slimmer packaging by reducing one-inch in the cardboard for individual toys going from Asian countries to the United States.  The reduction resulted in 727 fewer ocean containers, which also saved 1,300 barrels of oil.

What can we learn from Wal-Mart’s packaging solutions? As we take a step  in improving our environment through packaging, we can also recognize other benefits.  You can follow Wal-Mart’s lead with your own sustainable packaging.  There are many solutions to save money with efficient packaging apart from size.  Packaging materials can be reused for other packaging needs or used for creative innovations.  Instead of buying more packaging, save your money and use what you have.

For more ideas and tips about efficient packaging visit Sunrise Packaging’s green center!

Packaging can create value for consumers. Yes, the box a product comes in is designed to keep the product clean and prevent it from getting broken during transportation from where the product is made to the place it is finally removed from its packaging.

However, a box can do so much more:

• It can be designed to enhance the consumer’s first experience of the product. (Like wrapping presents in pretty paper during the Holidays)
• The packaging can (and should) show off the product and demonstrate how it benefits the consumer.
• The packaging can be designed to be used over again after the product has been removed either for the product itself or for another use.
• The material that makes the box can do something special like be impregnated with flower or grass seeds so that it beautifies the environment after disposal.

Take the new “green” pizza box company that launched in October. ECO Inc., a maker of environmentally friendly and multifunctional packaging, introduced its product Greenbox. The Greenbox is a pizza box made from 100 percent recycled material that also breaks down into serving plates and a storage container for leftover pizza.

The Greenbox promotes less waste and reusable packaging material, while serving as a convenient product for consumers.

Like the Greenbox, when a new product comes to market, the packaging it comes in will influence its success. A great product in a plain brown paper bag will be overlooked every time.

Be sure to work with a packaging company that can help you create custom packaging that stands out, makes consumers feel good about their purchases when they open the box, and is environmentally friendly or reusable. Check out our green packaging options at Sunrise Packaging.

With the growing concern for sustainable packaging, Greener Package decided to recognize the green efforts of companies moving in the right direction with environmentally-friendly innovations.  The winners come from a range of different industries, including food, pharmaceutical, personal care, and household care.  Here is the list they came up with:

Greener Package Award

• Entropy Solutions–Greenbox thermal management (Winner of Innovator of the Year)
• Estee Lauder–Aveda Vintage Clove Shampoo & cap collection program
• Bryce Corporation–SunChips bag from 33% PLA
• Robbie Mfg.–Hot N Handy Bio-Pouch
• ConAgra-rPET in CPET trays for Healthy Choice
• Ampac–Patch Perfect
• Rexam PLC–rPET in APET drug ovals
• Unisource Worldwide–recycled toys with 100% recyclable packaging

Retail Leadership Award

• Marks and Spencer

Clean Manufacturing Award

• J.L. Clark

All of these companies are setting the mark for their competition.  If they want to stay in the game, they must follow suit with their green efforts, or go above and beyond, because eco-friendly packaging is here to stay.

If you’re like most people, you keep hearing about companies going green to both please customers and help the environment.  It can be overwhelming to try to manage your company’s green efforts if you don’t have much experience, but even small steps towards becoming more environmentally-friendly can help.  That is why it is important to set goals for yourself and your company that you can achieve.

I found some tips and goals to benchmark your environmental progress from the marketing magazine, Deliver, that can help your company in its start to become more eco-friendly:

Paper Procurement & Use

• Increase wood/paper purchases from recognized forest certification programs (by X percent by X year).
• Indicate use of suppliers affiliated with sustainable forestry practices that protect forest ecosystems and biodiversity as well as provide the wood and paper products our company needs.
• Increase purchase of environmentally preferable paper used for marketing pieces, product packaging, and/or internal consumption (by X percent by X year).

So you want to help the environment by being more eco-friendly and increasing your green efforts, but think that it is too expensive? Many people wonder if they should cut back on green marketing and their green efforts in a struggling economy, but in fact you should do quite the opposite. I read in the September issue of Deliver, a marketing magazine, that it is actually a “hook to getting through them”. They say that green marketing improves your efficiencies, increases customer loyalty, and differentiates your brand.

Take for instance, Wal-Mart’s green efforts. Wal-Mart’s “Earth Month” green marketing efforts included print ads for 10 different green products under $10 and “rollbacks” on environmentally-friendly products. Customers are looking for ways to save money in a tough economy, and Wal-Mart is helping them do that, while still having a positive environmental effect.

Green marketing also increases customer loyalty. Frito-Lay’s SunChips brand gained customers by showing them that green is both good for them and the environment. They started this marketing plan after seeing market research from 2006 that showed that people who care about their personal health also care about the planet. SunChips have 18 grams of whole grain and zero trans fat. Since these chips are healthier than regular potato chips, their campaigns played off this, their nature-related name, and their sustainability investments, which includes producing a compostable bag. They promoted their compostable bags with an online video showing them decompose, as well as print ads that included a tear-off sample for consumers to test it out themselves in their compost piles. Green marketing helped SunChips become one of the fastest-growing snack brands at Frito-Lay.

Green marketing, done correctly, also differentiates your brand from the competition. IBM took a different route by connecting with the community in their green efforts. Their Smarter Planet initiative used direct mail to encourage individuals, businesses, and institutions to change the way they work. They also started a series of jams, or brainstorming sessions, that bring people from around the world together to solve an issue. Their “Congestion Challenge” collects innovative ideas to fight transportation congestion, and the winner receives $50,000, as well as the development and implementation support for the idea.

Successful packaging can lead to increased sales, monetary savings and a more positive public image. The following are some examples of packaging successes and their outcomes. Now would be a good time to take notes.

Wal-Mart – a company that is known for attracting negative publicity but has been working toward sustainability – received positive attention recently for choosing Winterborne as their packaging provider. Winterborne was awarded a Converting 2007 Innovator Award for its EnviroShell package. EnviroShell is a 90 percent recyclable and recycled clamshell and the use of this packaging product reflected positively on Wal-Mart in the news media. The take-away? Sustainable packaging has benefits for the environment and for your business image.

Vaseline recently redesigned its brand through a packaging change. Prior to the change, the brand’s identity had been lost as it expanded. Different products in the Vaseline line had different logos and package designs and there was a lack of consistency. Blue Marlin stepped in and created a consistent, attractive, brand-cohesive logo that would stand for all Vaseline products. Blue Marlin made sure that each Vaseline product included classic blue plastic lids and they put a great deal of effort into matching the color of the logo to the blue plastic lids. Vaseline is now the fastest-growing personal care brand for its parent company, Unilever. What’s the take-away here? A strong, consistent brand combined with refreshing packaging can lead to an increase in sales for your business.

Mrs. Fields revamped its retail packaging to reflect a design similar to the redesigned Mrs. Fields stores nationwide and to play on the nostalgia associated with the brand. Tempting shots of cookies adorn the new packaging, which is now more consistent with the Mrs. Fields brand. This new packaging has earned positive reactions from media sources, especially within the packaging industry, appearing in such magazines as Packaging World. The take-away? Refreshing your packaging can strengthen your brand image and generate recognition for your company!

Get to know the message behind your brand and whether your packaging reflects that. Not every product needs repackaging, but, as in these cases, refreshing your packaging may lead to positive consequences for your company and brand.

As consumers are being educated and motivated to become more environmentally-friendly, we are seeing more and more eco-friendly products being introduced.  One of these areas is the cell phone industry.

One example is the Samsung Reclaim that was recently offered for Sprint users.  Not only is this phone a more environmentally -friendly option, but it is also Sprint’s first 3G QWERTY phone to get down to only $50 after rebates with a signed contract.

80 percent of the material used are corn-fed and recyclable.  They skipped the paper manual, so less paper would be wasted.  They also used recyclable packaging printed with soy-based inks.

You don’t have to gibe up quality cell phone features to be environmentally-friendly.  This phone still has  a 2MP camera, GPS, and Bluetooth.  Better yet, with each purchase, a few dollars are donated to a land conservation  charity.  This phone proves once again, that you can have a quality product at a low cost, while still being eco-friendly.

It’s been said that 30 percent of all garbage is packaging…but who says packaging has to be garbage?  many forms of packaging can be recycled, such as cardboard, paper, glass, and some plastics.  But there still are other options if the packaging is not recyclable.  It can be reused again or re-purposed to do something else.

Rodney had the idea to re-purpose one of the most un-eco materials around, Styrofoam, into stunning lamps.

It’s amazing where a little creativity can get you.