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 percent and improved by 30 percent 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.”
Reusing
HP considered all environmental impacts, including reuse during the
ink and toner cartridge packaging redesign. Wollam offers an
interesting perspective on the term reuse in the context of
sustainability. Reuse means incorporating recycled content when
possible. Reuse also means designing packaging so that it can have
secondary uses. HP’s new LaserJet toner box (pictured), which is
significantly smaller and uses fewer materials than the box it
replaces, was also designed to be reused as a container to ship empty
toner cartridges back to HP.
The package is self-sealing, another convenience feature. Business
users can take up to eight boxes, bind them together as a unit, and
send cartridges back to HP. Making returns easy increases the
likelihood people will actually follow through. These boxes can also
serve as a handy means to mail small items. (HP does not reuse printer
cartridges, because remanufactured cartridges do not deliver the same
reliability or quality as original cartridges.)
Recycling
“Mixed materials within a single package can have a negative impact on
the recycling steam — lowering total usable content,” said Jean
Gingras, HP environmental marketing manager, North America Supplies.
“We strive to have pure groupings of material — one type of plastic or
one form of paperboard. The long term goal is to ensure increasing
amounts of high quality post consumer and industrial materials coming
back into the system.”
It is one thing to create packages that can be recycled and quite
another to induce consumers, businesses, and municipalities to recycle
in the first place. To that end, HP has instituted programs to make it
both cost effective and manageable to take back its printing products
and packaging for recycling.
“We see our total customer experience scores going up in the
environmental area as we communicate HP’s commitment to the
environment,” Gingras said. “Our customer loyalty scores are rising as
well. In this era of choice and competing messages, loyalty creates a
powerful impulse for the consumer or business to buy your products.
Employees that belong to an organization that strives to reduce and
recycle also develop greater loyalty and a desire to achieve. Apart
from the environmental and social advantages, sustainability offers a
powerful bottom-line incentive as well.”
