Sustainable Packaging Materials: What to Use and Avoid

Packaging matters, and making it from sustainable materials is now essential. Here are our recommendations for 5 materials that are commonly used in packaging today: plastic, paper and carton, glass, tinplate and aluminium.

For each material, we list the finishes to prefer and the ones to avoid, so your packaging meets sustainable criteria.

Plastic

Preferred Finishes:

✔️ Use materials that are as widely available as possible (PP, PE, PET)
✔️ Use recyclable material combination (ideally mono-materials)
✔️ Ensure surface area of the base material should, at best, be covered to a maximum of 50% with a sleeve, label or banderole
✔️ Easy mechanical separability of the individual components in the sorting process
✔️ If possible, use transparent materials
✔️ Use as few additives as possible
✔️ Adhesives are recyclable or washable under certain conditions
✔️ No barrier layers, but if necessary: use carbon plasma coating3, SIOx- or Al2O3 barrier

To Avoid:

❌ Small parts that can be separated by the last consumer (littering)
❌ Non-recyclable material composites
❌ Density-changing additives (density-increasing additives in PE and PP packaging lead to problems during sorting)
❌ Use of Carbon-black based inks

Check out our writable hydration bottle that we designed and produced for NYSI, a youth-centric sporting organisation that aims to value-add and positively impact the Singapore youth sports ecosystem.

View NYSI Project

Paper / Carton

Preferred Finishes:

✔️ Choose fibres from coniferous and deciduous trees for production
✔️ If possible, finish without coating. However, if necessary, use single-sided plastic coatings or plastic laminate (fibre content in the best case > 95%)
✔️ Adhesive applications that do not lead to the formation of problematic stickles
✔️ Inks that can be removed in the de-inking process
✔️ Use as little colouring as possible, and minimal printing with EuPIA-compliant colours

To Avoid:

❌ Plastic coatings on both sides
❌ Wax coatings
❌ Silicone paper (exception: feed to special recycling plants)
❌ Wet-strengthened fibre components
❌ Integrated windows and other plastic components which cannot be easily separated from paper

See how we branded, designed, and produced for Callery’s, one of the world’s first premium reduced-calorie ice-cream founded in Singapore.

View Callery’s Project

Glass

Preferred Finishes:

✔️ Standard colouring in green, brown, white (transparent) or related shades
✔️ Regular three-components packing glass (quartz sand, soda, limestone)
✔️ Engravings and paper labels (wet-strength)

To Avoid:

❌ No packaging glass, such as heat-resistant glass (e.g. boro-silicate glass)
❌ Lead crystal, cryolite glass
❌ Ceramic parts
❌ Full-surface, colour-coated bottles
❌ Full surface sleeves
❌ Permanently adhesive and large-area plastic labels