Tag Archives: wal mart

ENSO Plastics smart marketing at PACK EXPO

ENSO Plastics won over PACK EXPO attendees and exhibitors with their simple yet in your face marketing strategy.

A young woman, wearing a cleverly designed skirt from single use plastic waste and a sign stated “Is your packaging Biodegradable. ENSO plastics” As she walked down the aisles, heads turned, and people had to ask “Okay, you gotta tell me, What is ENSO?”

With the thousands of dollars spent  adorning booths with hopeful marketing tactics, its refreshing that something as simple as in your face, emotionally jarring marketing can get your message across more successfully.

Got a photo of the plastic dress girl? Make sure to post it on ENSO’s facebook wall!

 

girl in plastic outfit at PACK EXPO

Green Packaging goes Beyond Size

egg carton

 

 

Sustainable Packaging Goes Beyond Size

by Walmart on 08.22.11   Business & Politics
Photo credit: FotoosVanRobin/Creative Commons

This guest post was written by Ronald Sasine, senior director of packaging at Walmart.

When you buy a product, your decision drives a series of environmental impacts. Imagine the benefits if everyone considered the impact of packaging as part of their buying decisions, benefits measured in the billions of pounds of packaging manufactured, shipped and disposed of each year.

When we talk about more sustainable packaging at Walmart, we’re focusing on more than just smaller packaging. We’re looking at the entire life cycle of packaging and knowing that improvement can take many forms:

Rethinking a product. A few years ago, we began selling only concentrated liquid laundry detergent. By urging our suppliers to reexamine their products’ formulation, we eliminated hundreds of millions of pounds of packaging and saved natural resources.

Rethinking a process. By simply stacking Galaxy box fans differently on a shipping pallet, we saw annual savings of 10,000 pounds of plastic and 113 fewer trucks on the road, reducing diesel use by 12,600 gallons and freight costs by $150,000.

Rethinking a presentation. By working directly with our large toy suppliers, Walmart has been able to eliminate the frustrating wire ties used to secure toys in packaging. This effort will keep more than a billion feet of wire out of the landfill annually.

One other thing to notice about these changes—you don’t just find them at Walmart. As we work with suppliers to find better options, those improvements are showing up on the shelves of other retailers, increasing the impact we can have beyond our own “four walls.”

Walmart has a goal to reduce our packaging by 5% by 2013 (using a 2008 baseline), and we’re making significant progress. Of course, it hasn’t always been easy. We’re working to ensure that improved packaging still protects the products we sell, and we’re working with our customers and members to gain their acceptance. Some packaging changes have taken longer for customers to understand and endorse.

When we announced our package reduction goal in 2008, some of our suppliers saw a great opportunity and jumped in to partner with us on some creative changes. But not everyone was convinced it was right for business. Some suppliers worried about changing their processes, while others worried about investing in new equipment. However, when they realized how serious we were about packaging and that we would work with them and reward them for better packaging, they became very enthusiastic about the effect they can have on the industry by, well, thinking outside the box.

Better packaging benefits everyone along the supply chain, from the manufacturer to the customer. Walmart’s private label wine, Oak Leaf, is a great example. The manufacturer found a way to reduce the amount of glass used in the bottle by changing the design of the neck and reducing the punt (the dimple on the bottom of a wine bottle). In addition to reducing packaging weight by 8 million pounds, carbon dioxide by 3,100 tonnes and taking 280 trucks off the road, these simple changes reduced the price of Oak Leaf by 20 cents per bottle.

We’ve made many of the easy changes; now it’s time to tackle the more difficult challenges like installing new packaging equipment to that requires long-term planning and partnership with our suppliers.

Working toward more sustainable packaging isn’t optional; it’s a priority and it’s a large part of our business plan. For suppliers it’s a chance to differentiate themselves from their competitors. For Walmart it’s an opportunity to provide more value to our customers, to be innovative, think creatively and make changes that can improve the retail industry.

Read more about Walmart:

Brands Say Bye to Excess Plastic to Save a few Bucks.

 

In recent news the rumor is that a few major stores are making “significant” changes to reduce packagingSaying Goodbye to Excess Packaging seems to be related more to high oil prices rather than true environmental concern. If companies were truly concerned about environmental factors wouldn’t they just switch to more earth friendly plastics, say ENSO? What may initially seem like a movement to lessen plastic waste has turned out to be companies just trying to save a few bucks. Target is removing plastic lids from its Archer Farms yogurts, redesigned some light bulb packages to eliminate plastic and is selling socks that are packaged with paper rather than bags. Wal-Mart has made a gallant effort to reduce their packaging by 5% between 2008-2013 by concentrating detergent to reduce size of packaging as well as making peroxide bottles from round to square and Home Depots Husky tools are switching to paper packaging. These aren’t the only companies cutting down on plastic, Seventh Generation (sustainable cleaning and personal products) has been mentioned as well. Minimizing plastic & making plastic earth friendly like ENSO is awesome but be sure to not be confused by the motive of these companies.
–Megan Bentley

Take a Read at the Article I am referring to below!

Major Brands Say Goodbye to Excess Packaging
by Rachel Cernansky, Boulder, Colorado on 06. 2.11

BUSINESS & POLITICS Good news, according to the New York Times: excess packaging, plastic in particular, is on the decline. Apparently more because of high oil prices than any environmental concern, but we’ll take it. The Times has examples of a few major stores making significant changes:
Target has removed the plastic lids from its Archer Farms yogurts, has redesigned packages for some light bulbs to eliminate plastic, and is selling socks held together by paper bands rather than in plastic bags.
Wal-Mart Stores, which has pledged to reduce its packaging by 5 percent between 2008 and 2013, has pushed suppliers to concentrate laundry detergent so it can be sold in smaller containers, and has made round hydrogen peroxide bottles into square ones to cut down on plastic use.
At Home Depot, Husky tools are going from clamshell to paperboard packaging, and EcoSmart LED bulbs are about to be sold in a corrugated box, rather than a larger plastic case.

And a follow-up blog post expands on a couple others:
Seventh Generation, a maker of sustainable cleaning and personal care products, began using a pressed-cardboard detergent bottle that is recyclable; an inner pouch contains the liquid detergent.
“The category potential for this is huge, from vitamin companies to pet food, juice, milk, ” said Julie Corbett, the founder of Ecologic, which makes the cartons.
Recently Wal-Mart began replacing the metal twist ties that keep dolls and other toys in their boxes with paper ties.

Now, reducing packaging is a huge step forward, but it’s not the end goal. Buying in bulk—everything from rice and coffee to shampoo using refillable containers—is always going to be the environmentally superior option.
As Planet Green has written before, “Nearly 80 million tons of waste is generated from packaging and containers annually,” and from TreeHugger: “a 10 kilogram bag of rice has 20 less bags than the equivalent in 500 gram packages. And it that one bulk bag is probably a compostable cotton sack anyhow, instead of plastic. Wasted transport fuel is reduced because much more product per container is delivered to the store.”
So yes, look for products with minimal packaging and support companies making the effort to eliminate excess, but whenever there’s a bulk aisle, shop there first.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/major-brands-say-goodbye-excess-packaging.php