Have you ever gone on a hike, stared off into the distance and pondered to yourself, “Wow, what a beautiful view.” Or propped up your umbrella and placed it on the grainy sand, sit down on your chair and catch a hold on how beautiful the ocean is, how blue and how soothing the sound of the waves are. In general when we are outdoors we definitely have felt a peaceful feeling while in nature or anywhere outdoors.
I personally love the outdoors and that serene feeling that comes from being outside. However the environment is taking a hit. According to nationalgeographic.org Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. Throughout this essay I will be explaining reasons on why more companies should adopt environmentally friendly packaging.
To begin, one reason companies should adopt environmentally friendly packaging is to avoid contamination and or littering. An example many companies have and use plastic bags. A Lot of the time, if not most of the time people don’t tend to reuse those plastic bags, they just end up being thrown away. www.haileycityhall.org claims that “It takes 1000 years for polyethylene bags to degrade/break down. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photo-degrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways. Plastic bags clog both our solid waste facilities and storm drains. Plastic is the largest source of ocean litter.” If we limit the amount of plastic bags we use at the grocery store which most of the time just ends up being thrown away, we can avoid the clog of our waste facilities and storm drains. We can keep the ocean clean and avoid eating contaminated fish since that is what we end up eating fish from an ocean we are contaminating. We can use personal reusable bags and the grocery store instead of using plastic bags.
The second reason as to why more companies should adopt environmentally friendly packaging is it saves millions of dollars. www.Billerudkorsnas.com declared that “ Sustainable packaging that is designed to minimise inefficiencies that contribute to environmental harm can also help optimize business operations. Home goods retailer IKEA is one notable example. Adjusting the packaging for one of its products by 50% resulted in savings of 1.2 million Euros per year.” As we can see tons of money can be saved and used for other important worldly affairs such as people in poverty then just spending it on plastic bags or other contaminable products which just end up in the ocean or on the side of the street.
In conclusion, from these two points of view we can see the benefits of Why should more companies adopt environmentally friendly packaging. First is environmentally friendly packaging to avoid contamination and or littering. The second is to save money. Now I was in Chile as a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Chile they did not use plastic bags rather they used their personal bags to go do the groceries. Which I’m sure allows them to have a cleaner ocean and save more money. These are some reasons and there are many others as to why more companies should adopt environmentally friendly packaging.
Alexandra Comus
Valley Lutheran High School