More 2 Marketing

Susan
More to marketing. Welcome to more to marketing, a podcast on marketing, product and everything in between. I’m your host, Susan, and today we’re going to talk about alternatives to plastic. A lot of companies out there use plastic either to wrap their products in or even to distribute their products in. And as we all know, plastic is turned into one of the biggest problems of this century. But there are a lot of alternatives to consider. Many of them we’re already aware of, like glass, etc, but there’s some new different technologies that are coming out as well and it’s something we should really consider. There’s this whole E force at the moment about reuse, recycle, repurpose, and I completely agree with this cycler type motion of using these products and plastic does fall into that. I know myself I reuse plastic bottles, plastic containers, etc until there are no longer any use. But I’m sure there’s much more that I could be doing and begs the question that product marketers and product managers can be doing as well when it comes to development of packaging. Plastic is a major environmental concern due to its assistance in the environment and also its negative impact on the ecosystem. I’m sure you’ve all seen images of beautiful sea turtles or other creatures of the sea with plastic around them, and it’s quite heartbreaking to to see that and also to hear about that huge, huge plastic wasteland out in the ocean that’s kilometres from kilometres. It’s just absolutely huge. Up there are. There are some different ways to look at plastic and some other alternatives as well, so let’s explore that today. The first one is the environment actual environmental impact on the plastic itself. Plastic pollution poses a significant threat to the marine life, ecosystems and human health. Plastic waste can end up in oceans, rivers and landfills, where it takes hundreds of years to decompose. It harms marine life through ingestion, entanglement and microplastics can enter the food chain, potentially impacting human health. Potential alternatives to plastic. My cellular. Companies like evocative design use mycelium, the vegetable part of fungi, vegetative, part of fungi, as a bonding agent for wood panelling and flame retardant packaging. Another one is paper. Paper is commonly used alternative to single use plastics. However, it does have an environmental impact. Such as deforestation and energy consumption. So this one here shouldn’t be #1 as a replacement, but it is something for consideration if it can be biodegradable and done from reforested forestation. Or the other option as well when it comes to paper is it’s a reuse of material during a process. So come to mind, I think of coconuts and you’ve also got the hemp products. There’s a whole pile of products that are offshoots from a different source. You can use the whole product for the purpose. And one of. Those could be creating some kind of packaging. Polylactic acid PLA PLA is biodegradable plastic derivative. From plant plant sources such as corn and sugar cane. While it is composable in industry composing factories. Proper disposal infrastructure is required for its efficient. Deep composition. Another plant based the various plant based and possibility alternatives apart from PLA are being explored as potential replacements for single use plastics. These alternatives aim to reduce environment impact and greenhouse gas emissions. One really nifty one I saw years ago on one of those Shark Tank type programmes was a young girl had discovered that you could actually use pool on shelves as a form of plastic and that was being engineered and looked into. Lastly, is biodegradable plastic bags.
Some companies offer buy degradable plastic bags and alternative to traditional plastic bags, aiming to reduce the negative environmental impact. These are being phased out even within Australia as I speak. Because it is still as negative impacts from the creation of them, and how long does it really take to buy? Degrade as well. It’s important to note that while these alternatives have potential benefits, their full scale adoption and environmental impact are subject to factors such as proper waste management, systems recycling infrastructure, and overall sustainability considerations. A lot of ongoing research and innovation continues to explore new alternatives to plastic and addressing environmental challenges it poses. So overall, there’s some different ways to look at packaging. You could bring back good of flash and glass as well, but again, all of these have that issue of what do we do once the product is finished, the packaging around it, the product itself. So we need to really think about it as products, managers, engineers, anyone creating something that is physical, does it need all these fandangle packaging? Does it need all these noodles in the boxes? Does it need all this bubble wrap? Does it need? Does need 5 layers of opening up in the box for a super surprise? These are things that we really need to consider for packaging and also for the product itself. Hopefully this was a thought provoking session. Follow for more interesting podcasts in the future. More to marketing.