In honor of Earth Day, I was reading Anton Steeman’s blog on Earth Day and the Future of Packaging. Steeman thinks (rightly in my opinion) that Extended Producer Responsibility is coming to more countries. (it is in 30 countries now.)  EPR will make the manufacturer responsible for disposing of the leftover product and packaging. Steeman makes the valid point that most compostable packaging does not biodegrade in today’s landfills, so that it currently continues to accumulate.

Then I moved on to  read an article in The Guardian (UK) entitled Edible Packaging: Fancy a Wrap?,which came to me courtesy of The Packaging Diva. This discusses the possibility of making a food product where the container could be eaten with the product itself. While we at Package Machinery are definitely into packaging minimization, the idea of having no packaging afterward at all is a new and intriguing one. After all it will still need packaging, even if it does not require post-consumer processing.

And while most advice is recycling is the best, since it reuses the ingredients in the packaging, I leave you with one more thought from Earth911 Wow! I  Can Compost That? which will let you know what things you have been throwing away can  be turned into compost.

Between now and then, Package Machinery still making low material consuming wrapping machines which can run compostable material if you have not yet invented the edible package.