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Reduce, reuse, and recycle

Hewlett-Packard, ranked 11th on the 2006 Fortune 500 list of largest American corporations, practices sustainability on a global scale. If you ask Jill Wollam, a packaging engineer and new product planner for HP’s LaserJet supplies, for insights on how a packaging organization can make sustainability actionable, you receive recommendations that any packager—on the Fortune 500 list or not—can immediately apply.

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Wollam says, “We ask three fundamental questions during the development of a new package. Are we reducing? Are we reusing? Are we recycling? Our ultimate goal is to maximize the total benefit across the three sustainability pillars for all our packaging.”

A member of the team that recently redesigned the North American HP print cartridge packaging, Wollam speaks from experience. The new packaging will reduce material requirements by nearly 15 million pounds this year and offers significant advantages in terms of reuse and recycling.

Sustainable programs aim to lessen the environmental and social impact of a package from raw material extraction to processing, converting, delivery, and disposal. Sustainable packaging does not necessarily mean that renewable materials are always the optimum solution. They may not be for some applications. Sustainable packaging does mean that packaging engineers like Wollam go beyond product protection and marketing to understand the lifecycle implications of the package.

For example, HP reduced overall package weight for LaserJet toner packaging 45% and improved by 30% the number of toner packages per pallet. Fewer truckloads means less CO2 emitted. HP also decreased the number of materials used in these packages. This reduced total extraction, processing, and converting impacts. Wollam says, “If we simply looked at the package as a carrier and billboard for the product, we would never have considered the overall environmental and social context.”

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