The Home Depot reports the complete elimination of EPS and PVC from its new private-brand packaging and plans to achieve 100% compostable, recycled, or recyclable fibre packaging by the fiscal year 2027.
The retailer aims to pursue science-based, sustainability-minded packaging solutions in a partnership between its packaging team and its private-brand product suppliers – working to reduce the amount of packaging it uses and transition into environmentally conscious packaging materials for its private-brand products.
Between 2017 and 2023, it claims to have redesigned over 1,280 packages to cut down on their size and material usage.
Last year, The Home Depot claimed to have cut approximately 6 million cubic feet of expanded polystyrene (EPS) and over 39 million square feet of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from its private-brand packaging. Apparently, these hard-to-recycle plastics have now been eliminated from the new packaging for private-brand products sold in the United States, Canada, and online.
The move is expected to right-size packages, lower shipping costs, and generate less hard-to-recycle packaging waste, which is hoped to improve consumers’ overall shopping experience.
Going forward, The Home Depot plans to continue partnering with its suppliers to keep EPS and PVC out of its future packaging.
It has also set a new packaging goal to ensure all new private-brand, fibre-based packaging is compostable, recyclable, or made from recycled content across its American and Canadian stores by the fiscal year 2027. Its definition of fibre packaging includes paper, paperboard, blister cards, corrugate, moulded pulp, and paper materials.
It plans to start by researching current recycling infrastructure capabilities in the U.S. and Canada, then share its new goal, expectations, and timeline with suppliers. It will proceed to work alongside them in search of alternative materials for its fibre-based packaging; if and when these are found, they will immediately package new products, while existing products will be ‘assessed and updated’.
Additionally, The Home Depot emphasizes its focus on the new packaging achieving equal or improved performance compared to conventional solutions, ensuring that consumers’ expectations are met.
“We believe that by embedding sustainability into our business strategy, we can create long-term success for our associates, customers, communities, and shareholders,” said senior director of sustainability Candace Rodriguez. “Our efforts to promote operational efficiencies, minimize waste, and drive product innovation will help us move our industry forward.”
Previously, Packaging Europe reported on Walmart’s strategy to pursue sustainable packaging in e-commerce, which included right-sizing its cardboard boxes, a transition into recyclable paper mailers, and offering consumers the option to remove single-use plastic bags from their online pickup orders.
The retailer went on to embrace right-sizing technology from KNAPP and Packsize at its distribution facilities; this move was set to cut down on its use of filler material by over half, as well as lower the amount of cardboard waste generated.
This year, Amazon announced that it had replaced 95% of the plastic air pillows used in its North American delivery packaging with paper filler. Expecting to complete the transition by the end of 2024, the company expects to avoid nearly 15 billion plastic air pillows annually and help remove plastic delivery packaging from all its fulfilment centres in the region.
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