GLASS ISN’T ALWAYS GREENER

New findings reveal that switching from plastic to glass may actually worsen our environmental footprint, releasing up to 50 times more micro-plastics and generating triple the carbon emissions. It is time to start rethinking what sustainability in packaging really means. Going truly green has less to do with the materials used and a lot more to do with how we think about packaging design.

According to Vanessa Bosman, Group MD at Just Design, there is a critical misconception when talking about sustainability versus recyclability, so whilst glass is very recyclable, it has a massive carbon footprint – both to fire and to transport. Plastics are much lighter and therefore use a lot less fossil fuel to produce and recycle, giving them a lower carbon footprint than glass.

The real impact comes from understanding life cycle data, designing for circularity and collaborating across the entire value chain. Plastic didn’t become the environmental villain because of what it is, but because people built an entire throw-away economy around it.

From a packaging design lens, glass looks premium and is reusable, but the data doesn’t support the idea that recyclable is the same as sustainable. Manufacturing glass bottles generates up to three times the carbon emissions of plastic equivalents, requiring furnace temperatures of 1500 degrees C, compared to plastic’s 260 degrees C.  Glass is also five to ten times heavier, which means that one is burning significantly more fuel for every delivery truck.

The uncomfortable truth is that 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined in the design phase. Smart design considers the entire system, including the production footprint, transport efficiency and re-use potential. The key factor is designing packaging that never becomes waste. 

www.justdesign.co.za