Environmentally friendly packaging?!
Environmentally friendly packaging?
For consumer goods (not edibles), what are some forms of eco-friendly materials? Like vegetable dyes, and cornstarch paper?
Answers:
Generally non-plastic materials are friendly. Standard plastic is not biodegradable although it can be recycled into other objects.
Soy is used for printing inks, and that seems to be somewhat common.
Also, there are trends toward plastics made from corn and soy such as described in this article:
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issue...
anything you can re-use has priority over recyclability in the 3
r's of the eco triange.
1st choice is reduce no packaging is best but that wasnt your question
3rd choice is recycle but that takes energy to do as well as the fact that not all such materials end up there in spite of your best intentions an while you wait for nature to degrade them they still take up space.
the 2nd choice may have some eco-toxic elements in it such as resealable plastic bottles and margerine tubs for example) but they can be reused and then recycled so their effect may be less severe overall than something made with less harmfull ingredients.
its all about balance
Have a look at this site,,,, BIO degradable plastic is on the way to the UK.
http://goliath.ecnext.com/comsite5/bin/p...