Six Steps to Eliminate Plastic
Saloni Doshi
CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer at EcoEnclose | Leading voice on sustainable packaging
Eliminating Plastic Packaging at Scale
More and more brands are reducing plastic, driven by internal goals or commitments such as the US Plastics Pact. It might seem simple - find a paper alternative and switch to it - but we've seen firsthand that the process can be challenging. Brands grapple with questions such as:
We've taken what we've learned in transitioning hundreds of brands to non-plastic packaging and translated it into our Six Step Process to Plastic-Free Packaging.
Is your brand reducing single-use plastic this year? Contact us!
Our enterprise team will guide your brand through each step in the process.
hello@ecoenclose.com | 888-445-6575
Making the Plastic-Free Transition Successful
A comprehensive guide and interactive toolkit
We've supported brands of all sizes in going plastic-free. Through this, we've identified six steps to ensure a successful transition that meets your budget, sustainability goals, and the needs of your stakeholders, from factories to DCs.
Our step-by-step guide and a supporting interactive toolkit aim to make this process seamless for our brands.
The Step-By-Step Guide
Our resource guides brands through the goals, action items, and considerations for each step:
Our Interactive Toolkit
The Plastic to Paper toolkit includes calculators, frameworks, and trackers to work through questions, including:
Review, download, or make a copy for your brand.
An Example: Interactive Toolkit in Action
Highlights from Brand X's Move to Paper
Brand X represents many companies we've worked with. The apparel brand ships 5,000 weekly orders and joined a coalition to eliminate plastic. Our EXAMPLE tools illustrate Brand X's budget, carbon assessment, stakeholder engagement and decision-making criteria, plastic footprint audit, and testing process.
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Click here to see their calculations and help you clarify your process.
Step 1: Confirm plastic-free is the right plan
Budget and carbon assessment:
After reviewing the 75-95% price increase and 4.7x carbon footprint increase of going to paper, Brand X's leadership approved the transition, deciding that the sustainability and consumer experience of going curbside recyclability and non-plastic were worth the incremental cost. See more.
Step 2: Establish decision-making criteria
Decision criteria, stakeholder engagement, and audit:
After engaging multiple teams, Brand X prioritized lead time, meeting their budget, customer experience, and recycled content. An audit revealed that their poly mailers use 9 thousand lbs of plastic annually, more than any other category. See more.
Step 3: Audit and choose alternatives
Choosing their non-plastic alternatives:
Reviewing their landscape of poly mailer alternatives, Brand X chose to start with Kraft Mailers - an economical, functional, and 100% recycled option - and consider a thicker paper alternative if damage rates were too high. See more.
Step 4: Pilot, Test, Measure
Ship tests, piloting, and implementing change: 2000 ship tests led to 9 minor product issues, allowing Brand X to decide on Kraft Mailers. They rebranded their mailers to showcase the transition and rolled them out in increasing sizes, training their DC at every step. See more.
See the rest of the Toolkit in Action: Brand X's Plastic-Free Transition.
Reducing your plastic footprint this year?
Let's Talk!
We hope our resources make the plastic-free process easier and help you learn from the many brands we've already worked with. However, contact our team if you'd prefer a partner to work through this process with you!
We are excited to help brands on their journey to plastic-free packaging.
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Have a question, suggestion for future content, or interested in connecting with our sustainability team directly? Contact us: sarah@ecoenclose.com
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