If you’ve been indulging in online shopping or food delivery services during the pandemic, you are likely to have a pile of packaging — whether plastic or paper — sitting in your house.
What to do about it? Obviously, not all of it can be recycled, especially the oily cardboard boxes and flimsy plastic wraps. Dumping it in your trash can will contribute to global warming (landfill ↠ methane; extraction of oil), pollution and many other environmental and health problems.
Avoid and reduce unnecessary shopping is still the best solution, of course (usually, when plastic is recycled, its quality is degraded. Will talk about that another time).
In this blog post, I’m going to explore whether you can recycle these materials, and what the circular economy solution to this problem is.
A few tips:
- You can look for the little recycling sign ♻️ on plastic containers. The number will tell you what type of plastic it is. Check out this blog by Biji-Biji Initiative to find out more.
- From my research and conversations with recyclers, the plastic items that are most commonly recycled in Malaysia are 1 (PET), 2 (HDPE) and 5 (PP). Make sure it’s clean before you recycle it!
- 1 (PET) would be your plastic bottles, 2 (HDPE) would be shampoo bottles and stronger plastic bags, 5 (PP) would be the usual plastic containers and plastic cups.
- It’s not that the other types of plastic CANNOT be recycled. It just might not be accepted or collected because the value or quality is low, it’s too light or small to be collected and processed profitably, or it might be a composite of multiple types of plastic or other materials, which makes it hard to recycle.
Some examples:
More tips:
- Obviously, say no to straws and cutlery. You have those at home.
- There are some sellers that tend to use paper-based packaging or biodegradable/compostable packaging. There are still issues with these materials, of course, but it could be a better alternative than plastic packaging. Support these sellers.
- Request for less plastic packaging from the seller if you can, especially if you’re buying from individuals/small businesses on Instagram.
- Some companies say that their mailer packaging is made of recycled plastic, but I don’t think the packaging itself can be recycled again. So, think twice before purchasing. Also, there are significant problems with oxo-degradable plastic, which companies like Zalora use as their mailers at one point (not sure if they still do, do check yourself).
What’s the circular economy solution?
If one follows the principles of the circular economy (what’s that, you ask? read this), these would be some potential solutions:
- A take-back initiative ⥁, where consumers can send the reusable packaging back to the seller/third-party so it can be used for the same purpose again.
- Product-as-a-service 🧴 system where you pay a monthly fee to have certain items delivered to you monthly. You return the packaging and containers to the seller monthly as well. Or it could just be a rental of the packaging/containers.
- Compostable or biodegradable 🌿packaging that can be composted easily (will blog about this topic in detail another time).
Examples of companies that are actually doing it:
- RePack — reusable packaging (Europe & North America)
🏪🛍️ ➜ 🧍 ➜ 🏪🛍️
The seller will send their products in a RePack bag. The customers then sends the bag back to RePack, free of charge, after receiving the product. RePack will clean the bag and send it to sellers to be used again.
2. Loop — reusable packaging (UK, France, US)
🛍️🧴 ➜ 🧍 ➜ 🧴🛍️
Loop has teamed up with major brands and retailers to deliver essential products to consumers, waste-free. The items will be delivered in a reusable Loop Tote. Once the consumer is done using the products, they put the containers or bottles back into the Tote and schedule a free pick up or leave it at a drop off point.
Loop then cleans the containers and bottles and sends it to the retailers to be refilled and sold again. Some of the brands in collaboration with Loop are Danone, Coca-Cola and Nivea. It has also teamed up with retailers like Tesco, Carrefour and AEON in different countries.
3. BioPak — compostable packaging (Australia, New Zealand)
🥡 ➜ 🧍 ➜ 🌿
The company has a variety of packaging made from sustainably sourced trees and bioplastic sourced from renewable materials. Most of the items can be composted commercially or at home. It also offers a composting service for businesses that use BioPak packaging. The company will pick up organic waste, including the BioPak packaging, from its partner businesses to be composted.
4. barePack — container rental service (Singapore)
🏪 ➜ 🍱 ➜ 🧍 ➜ 🏪
Customers can rent barePack containers from restaurants and return it to an office collection point (if their company is a corporate client) or to any vendors in barePack’s network. The vendor will sanitise the containers and use it again. This can also be done for food delivery services by Grab, Deliveroo and FoodPanda.
Pretty exciting, isn’t it? I’d love to see this happen in Malaysia with Grab, FoodPanda, Shopee, Lazada, Zalora and all the big delivery players. Wouldn’t you?
Thanks for reading! ⭐
Some reading materials:
