Earlier this year the Ellen MacArthur Foundation released a report that recommended paper solutions as an alternative to flexible plastic packaging. In a recent conversation with Laura Smith, Programme Manager for Plastics and Packaging at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, we unpacked and examined the key findings of the report.
Please could you give us a quick overview of the report and its key recommendations?
Flexible plastic packaging – wrappers, pouches, and sachets – is the fastest-growing segment of plastic packaging globally, and the hardest to manage after use. Because of its small size and low value, small-format flexible packaging is rarely collected in practice, particularly in markets with informal waste collection. The result is that flexible plastic packaging accounts for 80% of plastic packaging entering the oceans.
Paper-based packaging has a crucial role to play in tackling this in markets with high leakage rates – but only if it is responsibly designed, to avoid replacing one set of problems with another.
The report explores the potential benefits, limitations, and risks of paper-based packaging, and sets out six critical criteria that define ‘responsibly designed’ paper-based packaging.
Promising innovations are emerging, but paper packaging that meets these requirements does not yet exist at the scale, cost, and performance needed. Our report calls for urgent, systematic investment in innovation to develop paper-based solutions that deliver real benefits.
Paper substitution is just one of many tools to tackle this. Since their size is the main barrier to collection, opportunities to reduce reliance on small-format flexibles altogether should be prioritised wherever feasible, such as reuse and elimination.
The report sets out guardrails for paper-based alternatives to flexible plastics – please could you talk us through some of the most important ones?
The six critical criteria define how paper-based alternatives can deliver benefits while minimising risks. Falling short on any one could undermine environmental outcomes and confidence in paper-based alternatives.
The fundamental advantage of paper over plastic-based flexible packaging is that it can be designed to be both recyclable and biodegradable across different environments. The primary goal is for this packaging to be recycled. Designing packaging for recyclability in local systems would enable this over time, once collection systems are in place.
At the same time, this packaging is leaking into the environment at the rate of 25,000 items per second, so we must design a safety net for when this happens. Designing packaging to meet robust, recognised standards for home composting and biodegradation is the best available safeguard against hazardous chemicals and persistent plastic pollution in the case of leakage.
Technical, economic, and consumer needs are critical to achieving adoption at scale. Packaging must deliver the product protection, shelf life, and consumer usability needed in the specific context where they are used, in a way that is economically viable for both businesses and consumers.
Packaging must also be responsibly sourced, responsibly produced, and part of a broader, socially inclusive circular economy strategy. The report sets this out in more detail.
This is a high bar. The vast majority of solutions today do not meet it. Achieving recyclability, biodegradability, and barrier properties at the same time is challenging. Early progress signals real momentum, but significantly more innovation is needed to expand the range of applications where responsibly designed paper becomes a technically and economically viable tool.
EMF says that the findings of this report are particularly relevant for countries like India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Why is this the case?
These countries are home to large and growing sachet economies, where single-use flexible packaging is central to how fast-moving consumer goods reach low-income consumers. At the same time, formal collection and sorting infrastructure is limited, with informal waste pickers playing a vital role.
The problem is that there is no economic incentive for a waste picker to collect a sachet: they would have to pick up 60 sachets in order to get the same value as a single PET bottle.
As a result, leakage into waterways, land, and the ocean is significantly higher than in countries with more developed waste management systems. We are also mindful of the sensitivities in this region around forestry and land use, which is why our sourcing guardrails – which avoid putting more pressure on forests through reducing and diversifying fibre sources across sourcing portfolios – are so important.
Does the Foundation believe that material substitution should always be favoured over the development of reuse schemes and recycling infrastructure for plastics in these territories, or is the reality more nuanced?
Avoiding the generation of packaging waste in the first place is the most direct way to address waste and pollution. Material substitution does not solve the collection problem: small-format flexible packaging is hard to manage once it becomes waste, regardless of the material.
Alternative delivery models, such as reuse and packaging-free models, should be prioritised where feasible and beneficial. Shifting towards larger, widely-recycled formats can also be more effective than paper substitution.
There are many opportunities to reduce reliance on small-format flexibles in the near term. Many products sold in small-portion sachets — such as home or personal care products, or milk — are already available in reusable or larger, widely recycled formats in the same markets.
When reducing reliance on small-format flexibles is not feasible, material substitution plays an important role. It is not a silver bullet, but a valuable way to reduce harm while systems catch up.
In all cases, scaling effective collection, sorting, and recycling infrastructure is essential. This is critical to reduce leakage and ensure that all packaging is kept out of the environment and circulated within the economy.
Proponents of flexible plastics often point to supposed advantages in terms of carbon emissions, weight, and functionality. Would a move to paper alternatives necessitate any trade-offs as far as these three factors are concerned?
The functional properties of plastic are undeniable. It is a remarkably effective material, and that is precisely why it has become so dominant in flexible packaging. But the innovation landscape for paper-based alternatives is advancing quickly, and functionality is catching up fast.
The functional performance of current flexible plastic packaging frequently exceeds what the product inside actually requires. Barrier specifications have often been based on what plastic can provide rather than genuine product needs. That creates more headroom for paper-based solutions than a direct material comparison might suggest.
On carbon, neither material holds a clear advantage. Our report sets out useful rules of thumb, but lifecycle outcomes are shaped by sourcing choices, manufacturing processes, and what happens to the packaging at end-of-life. In high-leakage markets where flexible plastics are frequently burned, the calculus shifts considerably.
On weight, paper-based flexible packaging currently weighs 1.2 to 1.5 times the weight of a comparable plastic equivalent. That has implications for transport emissions. But it is not a fixed gap. As barrier coating technologies improve and substrates become more optimised for flexible applications, we would expect that differential to narrow.
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