From management of renewable resources and responsible manufacturing processes, to widespread recovery and recycling, corrugated packaging is widely regarded as the most environmentally friendly form of packaging available today.
There is a common misconception that the world’s forests are being decimated to make paper when, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The virgin fibres for corrugated board come from sustainably managed forests that exist solely for the materials they provide.
Furthermore, the paper industry only consumes the forest thinning rather than the solid timber used by the lucrative construction and furniture industries. Wood and paper are therefore commodities and their value leads to new forests being planted rather than destroyed. So, typically, for every tree cut down three to four are replanted. It’s estimated that there are 25% more trees in the developed World today than there were in 1901.
The corrugated industry leads the way when it comes to recycling. Long before the environmental concerns of today, the corrugated packaging manufacturers were striving to recycle as much product as possible, simply because it made commercial sense to do so.
Corrugated cardboard has a recycling rate of 84% in the UK. This is the highest recycling rate of any type of packaging and, as a direct result, every four months an area the size of Greater London is saved from landfill. This recycling effort has evolved over the past 100 years and is now an incredibly efficient and streamlined operation. A used cardboard box can be collected as waste, recycled back into paper, corrugated and converted into another box in as little as two weeks!
The collection of corrugated waste is managed on a very large scale and the recycled paper itself is produced by just a handful of large and strategically placed paper mills, meaning the energy consumed in the recycling process is significantly reduced.
Furthermore, corrugated boxes are biodegradable and in some cases this will be the preferred disposal method. Consumers can take this opportunity where recycling facilities are not yet available.
The production of little or no waste further enhances the environmental performance of the corrugated industry. The corrugated products themselves are made from sheets of board that are produced specifically and to the exact size required, meaning there is very little waste produced during the manufacturing process. Of course, what little waste there is goes straight into the recycling process. Waste corrugated can actually be recycled seven times before its fibre becomes too weak for further use.
Finally, the corrugated industry works on a predominantly local level. A large network of companies around the UK supply the needs of the surrounding markets so corrugated products do not have to travel far before they are used.
In summary, the huge environmental benefits of an industry so environmentally focussed are far reaching: more land designated to forestry; less energy consumption; less landfill; minimum transportation of corrugated products, and then back into the loop to be recycled.