Zero Waste Pack
How might we reduce the single use packaging in our daily lives
without compromising on food safety and convenience?
1. Consumers challenges
Consumers would like to have a more positive impact on the planet with less packaging, but packaging need to be convenient. While most of the current alternatives to disposable packaging are lacking easiness -eg bringing back my packaging is not convenient and can be heavy – for most products, they simply aren’t any alternatives yet.


2. Societal challenges
Single-use packaging belong to the previous – linear – economy based on a fake assumption: ressources are unlimited. Ressources are limited and non-organic waste has a negative impact on the environment, animal and our health. To give a few examples:
- Every week, we eat the equivalent of 1 paiement card of plastic. Indeed, plastic dumped in the ocean becomes micro plastic over years and ends up in our food.
- 8 million tonnes of plastic are dump into the ocean every year. Plastic is poisoning the ocean Once in the ocean, plastic remains there for hundreds – if not thousands – of years, killing marine creatures, spoiling our coastlines, and damaging livelihoods. Some dead birds have been found with their stomach full of plastic
3. Business opportunities
Packaging have to be reinvented to reduce waste, reuse packaging and recycled it at the end of life. Creation of new type of packaging can be addressed, in the material used, in the shape of packaging, in the way we could cut some “layers” of packaging along the transport chain. Use and reuse of packaging can be addressed with analysis of new materials which can last longer and be cleaned, the logistic part playing a big role here. And the recyclable only is a topic per se that is beyond what companies can innovate together, so will need municipalities on board.
While a deposit system sounds like a good circular solution, it come with various challenges to overcome; cost, education, convenience, breaking silos along the food chain. Let’s reinvent the deposit system!
