Sustainable packaging on recycled paper and board

Sustainable packaging comes down to four decisions: the board or paper you print on, the ink, the coating, and the adhesive. If those are right, the pack can go in a curbside recycling bin at the end of its life. If one of them is wrong, usually the coating or a plastic window, the whole pack ends up in landfill regardless of what the label says.

We are Eco Friendly Printer. Greg Barber started the company in Northport, NY in 1990 and it is still family run. The business is now based in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. We print on 100% recycled, FSC certified stock with soy based inks and chlorine free bleaching, and we quote and ship packaging work nationwide. This page covers what we can make, how the material choices affect performance, and where common environmental claims do not hold up.

Start with post-consumer fiber

Recycled paper and board are the most widely used sustainable packaging materials because the recovery system for them already exists in almost every town in the country. Corrugated board, cartonboard, kraft and uncoated text and cover stocks all move through the same paper stream, and the mills that make them are set up to take used fiber back.

The post-consumer content matters more than the word recycled. Post-consumer fiber is paper that a person used and put in a bin. Pre-consumer content is mill trim and offcuts that never left the supply chain. Both keep material in circulation, but post-consumer is the number worth asking any supplier for. Everything we print is 100% recycled stock, and the mills we buy from include Sustana EnviroPrint, Monadnock Astrolite PC 100, Neenah Environment and Mohawk Loop.

The board and paper grades that do packaging work

• Post-consumer fluted board. This is corrugated construction, with a fluted layer glued between liners. It is the standard for mailer boxes and shippers because the flutes carry the crush load, and it is available with recycled content in both liner and medium.
• Cartonboard. Cartonboard is lighter, folds cleanly and takes print well. It is used for folding cartons such as retail boxes, sleeves and product cartons.
• Kraft. Kraft is strong and flexible, and it works well for wraps, bags, void fill and items with an irregular shape.
• Glassine. Glassine is smooth, translucent and grease resistant, and it does not pass odor or taste into what it touches. It is useful for interleaving, sleeves and food adjacent wraps.
• Uncoated recycled text and cover. This is used for the printed parts of a pack, such as hang tags, inserts, belly bands and care cards.

Inks, coatings and adhesives decide whether the pack is recyclable

This is where most packaging loses its recyclability. A recycled box with a laminated gloss film on the outside is a plastic coated box. Repulping equipment cannot separate the film from the fiber cleanly, so the pack gets pulled out as contamination.

We print with soy based inks. They deink well at the mill, and they do not carry the petroleum solvent load that conventional inks do. If you need a finish, an aqueous coating keeps the pack in the paper stream where a film lamination does not. Foil, spot gloss film and plastic windows look premium but prevent the pack from being recycled, so we prefer to create the effect with a die cut, an emboss, or ink on an uncoated sheet.

Adhesives are the other common problem. Starch based glues are used throughout corrugated construction and they repulp without trouble. Pressure sensitive adhesives on labels and tape are harder on the process. If you want a pack that comes apart into single materials, ask for water soluble or starch adhesive and design so the label peels or repulps rather than fusing to the board.

Plastic free shipping that still protects the product

Removing plastic from a shipper is mostly a question of void fill and cushioning. Paper based options handle most of it:

• Crumpled kraft or shredded paper for void fill. It goes in the same bin as the box.
• Corrugated wrap in place of bubble wrap. This fluted paper stock cushions the product and stays in the paper stream.
• Molded pulp for parts that need a formed seat rather than loose fill.
• Cornstarch based loose fill where you need volume with almost no weight. It dissolves in water, so it needs a dry box.
• Paper tape with a starch adhesive instead of plastic carton tape, so the sealed box repulps as one item.

Fit the box to the product first. An oversized box is often the most costly sustainability problem in shipping, because you pay for the extra board, the fill, and the dimensional weight on every shipment. See shipping mailers for our mailer options.

Compostable and biodegradable are not the same as recyclable

Compostable films, PLA, cellulose, mycelium and seaweed based materials all exist, and they work for specific jobs. The difficulty is disposal. Most compostable plastics need an industrial composting facility to break down, and most of your customers do not have access to one. If they go in a recycling bin, they contaminate the batch. In a landfill, they behave roughly like the plastic they replaced.

Biodegradable is an even less specific term. Almost everything biodegrades on some timescale, and the term carries no standard by itself. If you use a compostable material, print the disposal instruction on the pack and be specific about whether it is home compostable or commercial only.

Our own position is simple. Paper based packaging on recycled fiber, with inks and coatings that survive repulping, is the option a customer can dispose of correctly without doing any research.

Design choices that cut material before you print anything

• Cut a layer. Most packs carry one wrapper or sleeve that exists only for shelf appearance. Removing it saves material, weight and cost at once.
• Print the branding, do not laminate it. An uncoated recycled board with good ink coverage looks deliberate and stays recyclable.
• Design for one material. A pack that separates into paper and nothing else is the easiest to recycle correctly.
• Make it usable twice. A mailer box that opens flat and reseals for returns does two jobs with one piece of board.
• Tell people how to dispose of it. A line of disposal instructions on the flap helps customers recycle the pack correctly.

What we print and how to spec a run

We quote packaging and packaging components on recycled stock: cartons, sleeves, wraps, inserts, hang tags, tissue and printed shipping components. See our packaging pages for what we run, and labels and stickers for the applied pieces that go with them.

Short runs are available, so a small brand testing a pack does not have to commit to a pallet of it. Minimums vary by product, so ask when you request a quote. Our guide to eco friendly packaging for small business covers mailers, labels and inserts for smaller brands. Typical turnaround is one to two weeks from artwork approval. If you want to handle the stock before you commit, ask about paper samples when you request a quote. Holding a sheet shows brightness, texture and ink behavior better than a screen can. You can read about our stocks on our paper samples page.

When you ask for a quote, tell us the product dimensions, the weight, whether it ships alone or inside another box, and what conditions the pack has to withstand. That is usually enough for us to recommend a grade and a construction.

To price a packaging run on recycled stock, start your order and we will come back with stock options and a quote.