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Bad packing mars green goods

By Gabriella Boston (Contact) | Wednesday, July 16, 2008

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Green products come in green containers, right? Not necessarily.

Green products - like any other product - often are shipped in packages many times their size and sold in nonrecyclable, virgin plastic containers.

"You can buy something at a place like Whole Foods that is overpackaged," says Lisa Wise, executive director of the Center for the New American Dream, a green nonprofit in Takoma Park. "We suggest that people think more creatively about how they buy things. Go to the farmers market. Use reusable bags. Buy in bulk. Avoid bottled water. ... Think of how you can avoid packaging altogether."

Sustainable blogger Colin Beavan says that at the core of the issue of green packaging - or the lack thereof - is that many companies are trying to capitalize on green products as opposed to green systems. In other words, they count on consumers not looking at the entire life cycle of a product, but rather just the finished product.

For example, a product could be organic but produced in China (long transport) and packaged in a virgin plastic bottle (brand new, energy-intense production) that is not recyclable (ends in a landfill).

"About 40 percent of what goes into our municipal waste stream is packaging," Mr. Beavan says. "Which means about 40 percent of manufacturing is devoted to making packages."

Avoiding packaging is easier said than done, however. Try buying yogurt without a package.

At Seventh Generation, a Burlington, Vt.-based company for green home products, the approach is two-pronged: Increase postconsumer - recycled - content in packaging, and, second, which is more long-term, work on in-store, package-free solutions.

"We're going from 25 percent postconsumer content to 75 percent in our laundry and spray cleaner bottles," says Peter Swaine, Seventh Generation spokesman.

The corrugated boxes used for shipping products to stores soon will be made of 100 percent postconsumer content, Mr. Swaine says.