Packaging is part and parcel of lifestyles that have become almost completely disconnected from earth’s natural cycles and capacity to process our industrial wastes. Product packaging has often become “excessive” in the amount and types of materials used in order to market and brand. The various types of materials used for packaging, and the amounts of natural resources required to produce them, have several significant adverse impacts on the environment.

• Production of packaging requires the depletion of raw materials, such as paper, steel, plastic and glass, from natural resources.
• Production of packaging requires energy input and emits pollutants into the air.
• Landfilling, a process by which waste is secured into the ground, is “a flawed technology and a cancer on the land”.
• Incineration, another way to process packaging waste, emits harmful greenhouse gases, and sends a byproduct, toxic ash.
• Packaging has an impact on the environment in the pollution of waterways throughout the world that results as a byproduct of the manufacturing and disposal of packaging.