Ben Miyares, Packaging Sherpa

Contributing Editor

Packaging’s Shift to Plants

Packaging change is always driven by an interplay of market forces: Economics, evolving machinery and materials technologies, customer preferences and value perceptions, regulations, and corporate social responsibility among them.

Packaging strategies for an environmentally-attuned market

Pollution of our oceans and waterways is not a new problem.

Share your sustainability story

A few days ago, I got a phone call from someone looking for “environmentally friendly” packaging for a new retail line of cosmetic creams and lotions.

Rethinking packaging production, distribution, and afterlife

Loop, the circular product and package manufacturing and distribution platform that graced the cover of Packaging World last month was developed by TerraCycle, Inc. and is now supported by two-dozen or so international brand owners.

More from Ben Miyares, Packaging Sherpa

To reduce waste, don’t ban it; make it more valuable, collectable

Bottled water is facing a crisis. So says The Wall Street Journal in a front page article on December 13.

Innovative approaches address sustainability issues

My August 2018 column noted the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s launch in the UK and Chile of a global initiative to reduce plastics marine waste.

Planning, teamwork: Essentials for this digital age PACK EXPO

Global markets are in flux and PACK EXPO International 2018 is the easiest way to assess competing processing and packaging technologies for these times.

Will Plastics Pact tide wash over American shores?

In a move that hasn’t gone unnoticed here in the U.S., the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in England, collaborating with the British NGO WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), has launched a global environmental initiative to address “the root causes of plastics pollution.”

Evolving f/f/s tech leads to lighter, more convenient packaging, less waste

The form/fill/seal (f/f/s) machine was patented in the 1930s but it didn’t gain widespread market traction until sometime in the 70s.

Local interests influence far-off events

The maxim “All news is local” explains why I—and perhaps you—react to breaking news stories by asking two questions: “How will this news affect me? And what should I do about it?”

Be positive about sustainable packaging

Let’s stop for a minute and consider some of the positive sustainability initiatives of the food packaging economy.

Rise of the collaborative machines

“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.”

“…We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

You know how Dorothy wakes up in the Emerald City and tells her dog she doesn’t think they’re in Kansas anymore?