Eco-friendly Packaging Materials for Food

Unfortunately, so far there's no perfect eco-friendly packaging material, which is both really environmentally friendly and economically feasible. There's yet a long way to go toward this end. Common environmentally friendly packaging materials for food are:

#1. Biodegradable plastics:

Plastic is generally difficult to degrade. Thus there are many plastic wastes buried in the ground that will not decay for several years. And there's the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, too. Biodegradable plastics refer to plastics that can be degraded by microorganisms into water, carbon dioxide (or methane) and biomass under specified conditions. The development of biodegradable plastic packaging materials and phasing-out of non-degradable plastic packaging materials are the major trends globally and becoming one of the most popular material R&D projects. Although degradable plastics are easy to process and the price is gradually decreasing, the prices remain too high to be popular compared to ordinary plastics. 

#2. Metal packaging materials:

Since metal packaging materials are easier to recycle and handle, the pollution of their waste to the environment is relatively smaller compared to plastics and paper. Commonly used metal packaging materials are tinplate and aluminum, which are widely used in the manufacture of food and beverage packaging cans;

#3. Glass - Eco-friendly packaging materials

Milk, soft carbonated beverages, alcohol and jams are generally packaged in glass containers, and some cooking utensils and tableware are also packaged in glass. The main characteristics of glass packaging materials are beauty, hygiene, corrosion resistance, low cost, and inert materials, which have little pollution to the environment; its disadvantages are that it is fragile, bulky, and expensive.

#4. Paper - Eco-friendly gift boxes packaging

Since paper products can be recycled again after use, a small amount of waste can be naturally decomposed in the natural environment, which has no adverse impact on the natural environment. Therefore, it is recognized that paper, cardboard and paper products are green products in the world, and meets the requirements of environmental protection. Therefore, paper/cardboard packaging is a good replacement of plastics, to some degree and plays an active role against white pollution.

The above four are the most common eco-friendly packaging materials. Try to use eco-friendly watch gift boxes! At the same time, more and more environmentalists are advocating multi-use textile bags to reduce environmental pollution.