Help Write the Paper Industry’s Next Recycling Chapter – It’s an Opportunity You Don’t Want to Miss!
It’s Earth Month and the latest installment in the paper industry’s storied recycling history is here! We call it Box to Nature and it is a custom-designed recycling symbol just for the brown shipping box to remind consumers to recycle the boxes they get at home or work. It not only helps to get the fiber back to the industry, but also keeps it out of landfills.
The Recycling Partnership estimates that only 40% of residential shipping boxes are recycled.
This recent CNBC story about Amazon wanting to use fewer boxes gave me pause for concern as getting rid of “overreliance” on the signature brown box is a key goal of the retail giant and its consumer partners.
We know, of course, that the venerable brown corrugated box is worth its weight (literally and figuratively) and cost. The strength during transport, protection from the elements, and security and privacy it offers on delivery—in addition to the branding and customization opportunities it provides to manufacturers and retailers—make the expenditure well worth it for customers and consumers around the globe.
We also know that corrugated’s sustainability story is quite simply one of the best in the world. Made from a natural, renewable resource, it’s the paradigmatic recyclable and recycled material, with domestic recovery rates in the U.S. approaching or exceeding a whopping 90 percent.
The goal of P+PB’s consumer recycling mark is to make sure that every consumer knows that—and every B2B customer as well. To this end, not only has P+PB created for you a consumer shipping box initiative supported with advertising, but we’ve also provided marketing and sales materials to help you tell customers like Amazon our powerful forest renewability story.
That makes it both a powerful consumer education package and a readymade answer to the trends and headwinds affecting purchasing decisions at the customer and consumer levels both now and in the future.
P+PB has created a real, tangible benefit, boosting fiber recovery, feeding the recycling infrastructure we have invested $7 billion in through 2025, and inaugurating a new chapter in our sustainability conversation with our stakeholders.
We also know from our own detailed research that for most consumers, packaging is the most visible signifier of a retailer's or brand's sustainability efforts. And that 84% want to see more companies take the lead in developing more sustainable packaging solutions, especially among Millennial and Gen Z consumers who will be a large majority of future purchasers.
So what is holding back corrugated manufactures from adding the Box to Nature recycling reminder on customer and consumer boxes? Response has been strong so far but we don’t plan to rest until we get the Box to Nature message on as many boxes as we can.
