Climate change. Circular economy. Carbon footprint. Packaging sustainability continues to evolve as we learn more about our environment and as consumer sentiment shifts.

People-watcher and packaging design guru Tom Newmaster answers burning questions about these shifts:

• How is our culture changing as it relates to the environment?
• How do the brand goals for packaging sustainability align with these societal shifts?
• How should brands adjust their packaging sustainability goals and tactics?

Newmaster is partner at packaging design firm FORCEpkg, where he advises clients on branding, messaging, and sustainable choices. His advice in this podcast is on target. Here’s a sampling:

• Packaging sustainability messages need to be simple — and must make sense for the brand.
• What consumers do with your package when it’s empty needs to be simple.
• Brands should support the recycling infrastructure — especially at the local level — and consider closed-loop programs.
• Be careful about chemicals in packaging.

Listen in for more insights …

PACKAGING POSSIBILITIES - Season 2: Episode 17

If you have a topic you’d like to propose for a future PACKAGING POSSIBILITIES episode, please email Lisa Pierce at [email protected].

TRANSCRIPTION IS AUTO GENERATED

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Hello, this is Lisa Pierce, executive editor of Packaging Digest, with another episode of Packaging Possibilities, a podcast that reveals what’s new and what’s next for packaging executives and engineers, designers and developers.

In this episode, Tom Newmaster, partner at packaging design firm FORCEpkg, is going to make sense of the changing culture as it relates to the environment. And he’ll give us some ideas on how brands can adjust their packaging and marketing tactics to better align with today’s reality. Over the years, Tom has been a regular content contributor to Packaging Digest, sharing his insights into packaging and branding for a variety of consumer packaged goods markets, including cannabis. His expertise also includes impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and, no surprise considering today’s topic, sustainability shifts.

Tom, welcome and thanks for joining us today.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yes, me too. Definitely. So, Tom, let’s start with the big picture. Tell us, how is our culture changing as it relates to the environment?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
It’s funny you use the word changing. I look at it more as an evolution.

Right. You think back to, at least me personally, back in grade school, right, when the whole Earth Day thing started and where we are today. So you know, sustainability, recycling all of those things as it relates to the environment is evolving over time. Depending on who you talk to, it’s never fast enough. There’s things we need to do now. Right. Things we need to do moving forward. And what does that future look like? It appears to be a major concern, an issue, at least for younger generations, which I used to consider myself a part of, but I guess I’m not anymore.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Ha ha ha, I hear you. I still think I’m young, even though I know I’m not.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right. I’m not 14, but I might act that way on most days.

But when it comes to the environment, it feels like we almost have a war on plastics today and maybe that’s a fair assessment, maybe it’s not, but it’s been demonized in almost all aspects of, you know, packaging, mainstream media. And the problem with that is you know packaging as it relates to the environment and plastic packaging specifically is, you know, it’s a very unique special material that does a lot of good. The problem is people, right? So do plastics damage the environment well, sure they do when they get thrown into the ocean or thrown into a river. Or discarded and not recycled, so.

The whole idea of recycling and, you know, a circular economy where things get reused and recycled, you really need to focus on how you can impact and make it easy for the consumer to do that recycling. And also an easy-to-understand method.

And I think at least in the US, we have a bit of a recycling problem. So how do we address that and how do we move that whole situation forward?

“In the US, we have a bit of a recycling problem. So how do we address that and how do we move that whole situation forward?”

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Tom, I agree with everything that you’ve said. There definitely is an anti-plastics movement. I also believe that it’s not necessarily fair. That there are plenty of good reasons and appropriate reasons to use plastics for packaging. I also agree with your assessment on circularity becoming more important. And I think that’s a really good thing and I hope that that continues going forward.

So, OK, over the last, you know, couple of years, really specifically, some brands have been very aggressive with their stating of goals for sustainability these days. And I do want to make a point that there is a difference between sustainability goals and sustainable packaging goals. So here this is the broader one that I’m asking about and that’s sustainability goals. Often, they are related to packaging, but I wanted to just check with you and see … what are you specifically seeing in this area, as far as the goals are and why do you think these are the goals that they’re picking?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
There are some very large brands setting very aggressive sustainability related goals, especially related to packaging and they probably should do it. It’s probably you know more of a PR effort than it is sometimes actually achievable goals because they are so aggressive, but it’s steps in the right direction. You know, McDonald’s comes to mind, you know with some of the things they’re doing with 80% of the guest packaging coming from renewable, recycled, or certified sources. You know, pledges related around fossil fuel-based plastics. What IKEA has been doing in relation to the whole End Plastic Pollution resolution from the UN. And if you think about Unilever, recently they’ve done some things around taking a lot of their top brands and putting them into refillable/reusable containers, potentially even doing like pump stations that retailers or people can come in and fill up their containers.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Ummm. OK.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
And they’re very aggressive and will they be able to roll them out, you know, in large scale remains to be seen. My whole my whole thing is, you know, you got to, you got to set goals that are attainable to keep moving that needle forward. Otherwise, you set it so far out there that you can’t kind of check it off and move on to that next step.

And I think packaging … maybe some people aren’t going to like to hear this, but packaging is that low hanging fruit, right? Because it’s that thing, I see that plastic bottle laying on the street walking to work. So, it’s that thing that’s always in your face.

But there’s a lot of other things that end up, you know, not being recycled or contributing to the Great Pacific Plastic floating island of plastic. Everyone’s seen those large nets coming on board the ship, right, and dumping that plastic on the deck of the ship.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yep.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
And if you really look at it, yeah. Are there single-use plastics in that pile? Sure. But there’s like containers and fishing nets, and you know a lot more of that garbage patch isn’t the demon plastic single-use bottle.

“A lot more of that garbage patch isn’t the demon plastic single-use bottle.”

Now I know, you know, that Plastic Island that’s floating out in the ocean is also floating. And I know plastics sink. So, I know the argument is “well, the single-use plastics are sinking to the bottom” and I understand that. But many times, they use the image of that Great Pacific plastic patch as the reason to ban single-use plastics. But if you really look at the image, it’s not single-use plastic. So it’s … I don’t want to say it’s propaganda, but, you know, it’s that striking visual.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Well, I think everybody has a position. And they’re using whatever images they can …

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Correct.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
… to fortify that position for making some improvements in the area. And I don’t think there’s anybody against making improvements in the waste situation. I do want to talk a little bit more about the whole circularity side of things because it does seem like that is where most of the success has been from a recycling point of view.

But is that the only thing that we can do from a circularity point of view, is recycle? What do you think of that, Tom?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Well, I think there’s ways to impact the overall carbon footprint of things. We recently completed actually a series of projects related specifically to ecommerce where we had a product, it was, whatever, over the minimum, the maximum length to get the lower shipping cost. So, we had to kind of restructure that package. And this particular product was also in like a plastic clamshell, which everybody hates.

And everyone knows when you get products in those plastic clamshells, if there’s no identification on the plastic, can you recycle it? Do you throw it in the trash? Did you end up cutting yourself? Right, so now you need a Band-Aid cause you’re bleeding.

So we took these products, put them in a corrugated “ships-in” box, used corrugated inserts, and then actually use pieces of the product material to act as the packing materials to hold it in place in that package. So what we did there is we obviously reduced the size of the package. That ecommerce box no longer had to be put into another box with packing material and then shipped, so it got larger. Reduced the weight, but then also when the consumer gets it, they take the product out and they’re left with just corrugated cardboard. So it was a single material, a commonly used material.

I think the beauty in that is making it simple for that consumer, right? They know what to do with …

Lisa McTigue Pierce
To recycle, right, at the end of life?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Yeah. Makes it easy to recycle because it’s easy. Like, it’s all cardboard. I know what to do with that.

But then overall, if you think about it, we just … the overall carbon footprint, forget the whole recycling aspect of that. We’ve reduced the size of the package. We eliminated plastics and potentially non-recyclable, you know, plastic materials. So the overall carbon footprint of those products went down dramatically too.

And then on the positive side, which usually doesn’t impact cost. This impacted cost as well because now all those extra shipping materials are not needed. So are there ways to create easy-to-use, carbon-footprint-friendly packages, outside of that, you know, recyclability.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
OK. Do you think the consumer recognizes the … that package change had a lower carbon footprint or did you call that out to them or is that something that you think brands are going to be looking to do moving forward? Because I have seen that shift most recently, where we are trying to use carbon footprint as more of the sustainability measure for packaging. And sometimes that's easy, sometimes not so much but. How did you do it for this particular project?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Well, I think if that environmental aspect or that carbon footprint claim is a major part of that brand personality, I think you call it out on the package. But if it doesn’t fit what the brand’s about … and I know that kind of ruffles some feathers too, cause right, shouldn’t all brands be concerned about the environment? But if it doesn’t fit with what the brand is and the brand promise, you probably don’t have room at least on front of the pack.

You know, to me, you know, if the client asks us to put it on the package, we will definitely do that in the most effective way. But many times, it’s around their social media and how they market their other products and how they market their brand. You know, it’s on them to communicate that to their consumer because … The consumers, where these things really matter to, they tend to be really, really ravenous consumers. So if you can hit the right target, they will definitely respond to your efforts around, you know, the environment in any way, whether it’s recyclability, sustainability, carbon footprint. Any of those things.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
OK. How do you think the brand goals are aligning with the societal changes that we’ve just talked about here?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
I think the brands were a little slow to catch on and kind of pick up on it. I remember being at trade shows and conferences several years back where, and I won’t mention any names, but they were talking about this whole environmental movement, sustainability, recycling as a trend. And I just thought that was odd because, you know, shouldn’t we always be concerned about the environment? It’s not just trendy.

And then I think today, once they finally caught on, brands and even designers are somewhat talking to ourselves, because I think it means, it might mean more to us on some level than it does to the general consumer. Because I just people watch as part of my job, right? I need to see how consumers interact with products, interact with packaging. Most people aren’t nearly as concerned as I am about this stuff.

“Brands and even designers are somewhat talking to ourselves … [sustainability] might mean more to us on some level than it does to the general consumer. … Most people aren’t nearly as concerned as I am about this stuff.”

I think if it’s at all confusing to the consumer, if they don’t understand what your message is and it’s not clear … like don’t throw all kinds of marketing speak at it. Just speak clear to the point, explain it. And the recycling aspect of it has to be simple and easy. If it’s not simple and easy, they are not going to do it.

My children who are in their 20s, mid-20s, when they were younger, they thought I was crazy cause I was separating several different kinds of recyclable materials and making them put cardboard in this container, plastic in this container, #1 plastic here, #2 plastic here, glass bottles here.

And I just watched them. They don’t … they’ll recycle aluminum cans. But, you know, other stuff they don’t really take the time to separate it. And I know geographically in the US, that type of recycling is easier and more convenient, in my area.

I know there’s one small town where they just basically said, “No more plastics; just throw it away.” Because they have nowhere to go with it. So like …

Lisa McTigue Pierce
No market.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Yeah, people want to recycle. But then the entities that pick up these recyclables aren’t picking them up anymore.

Now you’re creating a whole new generation, at least locally, where they’re just throwing everything away. And if you let that get away from you, I don’t know how you get it back. And that’s a whole other recycling infrastructure thing that we can probably talk for days about.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Well, if you can’t recycle used packaging or empty packaging, from a circularity point of view, what do you do with it?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
If you can reuse it, or do consumers just stop buying ... I don’t know. Water bottles, for example. Stop buying water that way.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
You mean single-use water bottles?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Yeah, singles right.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Because a lot of people are … already have reusable water bottles. I know I do. I’ve had it for, you know, years and years now.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
But, like, you know, we recently went out on an Outer Banks vacation. Will you go and buy a case of water, right? Because it’s just … cause it’s just so convenient. It’s hard. It’s hard to separate the convenience from what you do with that bottle later. And that sounds like an excuse, but it isn’t. It’s really a real solid reason and it’s just … Again, I said we can talk about the recycling infrastructure for days, but a lot of these brand goals, right, don’t coincide with, you know, that boots on the ground infrastructure.

“We can talk about the recycling infrastructure for days, but a lot of these brand goals … don’t coincide with … that boots on the ground infrastructure.”

I’m just waiting for a brand to, like … our sustainability goals and our environmental claims and mission statements around our brand are going to be around building that infrastructure.

You can reduce plastics all day long, but eventually there’s still going to be plastics out there. But what are you going to do with them?

Lisa McTigue Pierce
OK, excellent. You know, Tom, that was going to be my next question that you’ve already started to answer. What gaps are you seeing and how do you think brands should adjust? What other ideas do you have in this area?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
The big brands have the marketing horsepower and the dollars behind their brand to, I think, really make some changes — if they like shifted their sustainability and environmental goals towards helping build that recycling infrastructure. Like you could, you can reduce the weight of your plastics to a point. And then … let’s just say it’s a plastic bottle, right?

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Mm-hmm.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
At some point, it starts to fail. It doesn’t provide the barrier property it’s known for. Structurally, it doesn’t work. So in the end, you’re going to be left with some plastic. Well, let’s get behind recycling that better.

We all want to clean up the ocean and I understand that. But why isn’t someone helping do things to prevent plastics from getting into the ocean in the first place, right?

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yeah.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
I know there’s the whole ocean-bound plastic thing, which I think is a little confusing, because I know most people that I talk to about that, they think, ohh, that’s plastic that came from that, you know, great Pacific plastic patch and it’s now being used. But it’s not. It’s plastic that …

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Diverted.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
… that they deem was heading towards the ocean. And that’s all good. Like I’m not knocking any of them; not knocking clean up. I’m not knocking ocean-bound plastic, but … if you stop that ocean-bound play, what am I stopping all the rest of the plastic, right? Or not stopping it but keeping it in that recyclable loop?

I’m not a recycling engineer, right? So I don’t know how you got to do it, but somebody has to figure out a way to do it better and cheaper and faster. And make a market for those recyclable materials. And stop putting them on ships and shipping them to other countries cause ohh you feel good about recycling, but what was the carbon footprint of that move, right?

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Right, exactly. Yeah. Talk about circularity. Definitely.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
And I don’t think you have to … Tax credits? I don’t like that stuff, but it’s like, I think it needs to be incentivized in a way or show them a way they can make money at it or generate revenue. Like don’t ... I think local municipalities, at least you know, the smaller ones, right, which make up the majority of the towns and in this country, there’s no incentive for them to be good at it. Because if they’re good at it and then they can’t get rid of like these individual sets of raw materials, why bother.

And then when you do say you collect recycling and then the consumer watches you pull up and you throw that into the same truck as the garbage, what’s that consumer to think? I mean, does it then go and get recycled and separated? Probably not. Probably goes to an incinerator if they’re doing that.

I don’t know, it’s just really hard.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
It is.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Why do we have to demonize something? Cause if you outlawed and banned all plastics, what are you going to make cars out of? Most of your car’s plastic.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yes, nowadays.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
So we’re not going to make, use plastic. We’re going to make everything as steel. Now, your cars are going to be five times heavier. It’s going to take 10 times more energy to move them. Did you solve anything? Like, I don’t think so.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Alright. Well, Tom, if you and I can come up with a solution to the recycling infrastructure, let me … I'm with you all the way. You and I will do it and we’ll be millionaires.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Seriously. There is no brand out there that I know of that is making any environmental, sustainability claim around them supporting or giving money to being better at recycling.

Why don’t they do that?

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Well, I think because they … it’s hard to make that claim. It might be subjective to the regional area. I don’t know. The one thing that we were talking about single-use plastic packaging. A water bottle, PET, single material. Highly recycled. Highly in demand for recycled content. Why would anybody move away from that and go to, you know, like a paper bottle that is going to have a plastic liner, so it’s mixed material. Or, you know, whatever.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right. And whenever anybody talks about these … again, we could really ruffle feathers on a different podcast theme. But you know when you talk about these oh, we’re going to use this recyclable paper bottle. But there’s no way it’s all paper. It’s lined with something. And then it probably can’t be separated from it. So yeah, you eliminated plastic, but now you just straight up created trash.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Now, according to the folks that are making these paper bottles, they’re spraying a coating that’s a food-grade coating that does not impact the recyclability of the fiber.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Excellent.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
So I’m not a chemical engineer. I can’t verify that, but I would hope that somebody, somewhere is verifying that.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
But as soon as you say all those things you said, there’s a whole army of consumers that are going to be like, wait a minute, you’re spraying a chemical on something, and I’m supposed to assume that that’s not going to leach into my food. Like, how do you fight that? I’m not saying it does.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Well, it’s food grade. It’s approved. But Tom, you and I both know, I mean, you said it yourself, the consumer wants something simple. They don’t want to hear about chemicals in the packaging being sprayed as a coating. They want that this is a paper bottle instead of plastic, so it’s not plastic. And paper I can just put it in my recycle bin and it disappears and I’ve done good for the environment. That’s all they want to know.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right. Got to make it simple and easy — and it’ll get done.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yep. Yep.

Before we hear more from Tom, let’s take a short break for a special message.

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Lisa Pierce here with Packaging Digest. If you are enjoying this podcast, I’ve got good news for you. There are more episodes with insights from other packaging executives at brand owner companies, including tuna giant Bumble Bee Foods, food and confections leader Mars, alcohol-beverage manufacturer Absolut, and snack-king Frito-Lay. Find these and other conversations at packagingdigest.com/packaging-possibilities-podcast. Now, back to our current episode to learn more.

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Lisa McTigue Pierce
Tom, what do you think … I’m going to throw out some other ideas here that are going around. And just to see what you think about them. Chemical recycling, which is, you know, technology, newer technology, sort of newer technology. It’s been around for a while but hasn’t been used from a packaging point of view. What do you think about that as a way of handling more plastics and more mixed plastics?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Again, it’s going to be based on what is the … to me anyway … what is the impact of those chemicals on the environment? What the waste after that chemical treatment? What is the environmental impact of creating those chemicals?

I know with one particular material, PDK [poly(diketoenamine)], there’s ways to process that with an acid versus, you know, heat and melting it down. And that all sounds good because, you know, to generate heat takes energy. But then I say, “Well. What was involved to make that acid?” And then, as soon as you say acid, you know, all kinds of red flags go up.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yeah, bad things, yeah.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
I think it ends up falling on AI and equipment where you can be running materials ... you can just basically scoop up a landfill, throw it on a conveyor belt, and machine’s AI will be able to pick out materials, whether they’re sensors …

Lisa McTigue Pierce
OK.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
… or something that will be able to sort faster than humans can, because right now it’s, you know, humans picking up and throwing, you know, bottles into this container, cardboard into that container.

You know how the whole, you know, capitalism works, right? If somebody figures out how to make money at it, it will happen fast.

“If somebody figures out how to make money at it, it will happen fast.”

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yes. And just to go back for just a second, AI is artificial intelligence. So that’s using computer power to do better sorting, which is … you know if you look at the whole process of recycling, you have your collection, you have your sorting, and then you have your market, the economic payoff for doing the sorting, and the collecting and the sorting.

So, Tom, do you think closed loop systems for recycling are the way that brands should maybe go for them to take a little bit more responsibility, do you think it should be extended producer responsibility, which for packaging we’re starting to see?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Yeah, I think definitely there’s room for the whole closed loop thing. I think right now everyone’s so anti plastic. I just don’t like that. I don’t like when anything’s like, demonized or banned, right. If you start looking at some of these treaties, they talk about, like banning plastics or banning single-use plastics.

You know, I just kind of do a reality check when I hear that stuff. I’m like, OK, so we’re going to stop packaging, you know, medical materials in plastic packaging, which basically saves lives and keeps things clean. So if you’re going to ban all, you know, single-use plastics, what’s the medical industry going to do? And I know someone will push back and say, well, we don’t mean the medical industry. Well …

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Right.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Then you’re not banning. Like you can’t say we’re banning the use of all single-use plastics and then you give exceptions, right?

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Right.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
So I just don’t like that. I think it should be focused more on better ways to use the material, maybe better ways to manufacture the material. And then I know we’ve said this before, you know better ways to recycle and reuse that material.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
OK, well in just the whole cycle of recyclability, that end market is pretty important to make it all work. Having the economy of recycling work and I know that a lot of the recycled content goals for the brands had been with plastics. So if they’re starting to eliminate plastics, to me it sounds like they’re also eliminating a market for recyclable plastics. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. I see that as being a little bit of a sticking point.

But I have questioned before the success of municipal recycling systems. If they’re not getting the job done, we’ve got to figure out a different way. Just like you said, Tom, you know, we’ve got to work on this recycling infrastructure somehow.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right. And I’m … I don’t want to get political right because I know that everyone gets their … you know, all upset. But I’m kind of a smaller government guy, not a big government guy. But, that said, if you’re going to subsidize something, subsidized regional local recycling. Again, me being a small government guy, if somebody said we’re going to take tax dollars and we’re going to put a whatever-size recycling unit in every region of whatever the population is … like, who would be opposed to that? First of all, it created a couple jobs probably, right?

“... if you're going to subsidize something, subsidize regional local recycling.”

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Hopefully.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Hopefully. They created jobs because you had to make those mobile recycling centers, right? You can … if you look at some of the things we’ve done recently with technology, it should be easy to kind of do that. And then you create a, you know, almost like a daisy-chain network of all these little like harvesting centers. And you could just go around and pick it up. I know I just oversimplified that, but if you’re going to subsidize something or you’re going to put US tax dollars behind something … throwing money at a UN treaty is one thing, but helping build our own recycling infrastructure, that just … who’s opposed to that?

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yeah, I can see that working. Maybe, Tom, as you were talking, I had an idea. So, there’s a lot more direct-to-consumer deliveries going on these days, partly … We saw a lot more of that because of COVID-19 with people getting things delivered to them so that they didn’t have to go out in public. But it sounds like maybe those delivery cars, trucks — whoever’s doing those deliveries could pick up stuff. I don’t know.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right, something right, I mean.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
So that they don’t go back empty.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Sure.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Because I remember at one point, you know, somebody was talking about all the trucks on the roads, that once they drop off their load, wherever it is, they’re dropping it off, they’re returning back empty. And why should they be empty? I mean, it should be continuing …

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Yeah.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
… to move things around as efficiently as possible. And that’s beyond my area of expertise.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
And it’s funny, you know, when we talk about all of these things, you know, there’s socioeconomic things, there’s current events, there’s global pandemics, right. And I know everyone’s tired of talking about COVID. But if you think about it, COVID put all of this sustainability stuff on hold, you know. And then we proceeded to create 8,000,000 tons of plastic waste. And then it’s like, well, what do you do with that. And it’s just a perfect example. When you needed security and safety, everybody went back to plastic, which …

Lisa McTigue Pierce
And it performed. Yep.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
So what does that mean, Tom?

Tom Newmaster (guest)
I don’t know. I just. It’s just funny. Like everyone’s concerned about the environment, but we weren’t for like two and a half years. Now I wonder, you know, in a couple years from now, are we going to be talking about all the masks that are laying on the bottom of the ocean? Right? Because if we can’t throw plastic bottles in the right container to be recycled or put in trash, I know for a fact, just my short walk from the parking garage door studio, people didn’t know how to dispose of their masks either, because they were all over the street, maybe even worse than seeing other, you know, single-use plastic trash.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Well, I think the used masks situation was much worse than plastic straws. At least that’s my opinion. Again, you know, everybody’s got their own opinion here. But …

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right. But again, this goes back to like, you know, marketing and the imagery around it, right. When you see the picture of the turtle with the straw stuck in its nose, you can’t forget it, right. And you don’t want to be the person that might have been responsible for that. So, it kind of strikes a chord. Whereas a mask laying on the street, you know the visual doesn’t touch your soul as much, you know.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
True, true. The harm isn’t there.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Right. OK, alright. So, let’s go back to just a little bit more on what brands should be doing moving forward here, Tom. What else do you think they should be doing? You said possibly working on you know the recycling, maybe closed loops. Marketing message. You mentioned that as well.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
I think the biggest things brands can do is just keep it simple, right? That applies to so many things in business and life. But I think, easy to understand things, stop using marketing jargon and whatever the latest phrase or trend is around the environment. And keep it simple.

“The biggest things brands can do is just keep it simple.”

I found the biggest impact things are, like I said, one of the projects we did ... if you can get it down to a single material in the whole package. So the whole package, when the product’s taken out, can easily be recycled and not, at the consumer level, have to separate multiple things and just being smarter about it.

And I know cost comes into play often, which is many times why, you know, plastic is used or isn’t used. But just not basing everything on cost. And again, as a designer who technically spends other people’s money, it’s easy for me to say. But you know sometimes you just can’t go that cheap route. That’s how we ended up with so many things packaged in those UV-welded plastic clamshells that every one of us has cut themselves trying to open at some point. That was all cost. I mean, I don’t know if that was the best way to protect that product, but at least it kept it from getting dusty.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Yes.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right. The consumer got it clean. But you were bleeding. So again, I think just keeping it easy and simple. And don’t underestimate that the consumers experience of unpacking or opening that product and then don’t ever underestimate the consumers experience, either with an initial purchase, that opening of the product, the unveiling, and then that experience of disposing of that packaging.

The iPhone always comes to mind as that ultimate consumer unboxing experience. It’s kind of funny, if you think about how many iPhones have been sold. No one ever talks about iPhone packaging waste because everybody keeps their iPhone box, right.

“It’s kind of funny, if you think about how many iPhones have been sold. No one ever talks about iPhone packaging waste because everybody keeps their iPhone box …”

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Guilty.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
I have, like, all of them. They’re not a recycling problem because we don’t throw them away. It’s kind of a joke, but yet it really speaks to, when you do the package right, it makes an impact. I know people that aren’t packaging designers and even say things like packaging doesn’t affect my purchase decisions, that keep their iPhone boxes. Like, why are you keeping that? I just feel like I can’t throw it away because, when I open it, it pulls a vacuum.

I don’t know. You just don’t underestimate that. And even you know, wow, you know, if you create a whole line of products that the consumer feels good about recycling, right, like when they’re all said and done, they just, well, that was easy to recycle, I mean is that going to impact the next purchase? Probably.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Probably because we all know that it’s the emotional attachment or the emotional connection that packaging makes that really resonates with the consumers too.

Well, Tom …

Tom Newmaster (guest)
And I also think any of those sustainable the sustainability or environmental claims … I think also need to make sense for that brand. Like I don’t think every brand can make the same claim. But I think every brand could figure out how to make a difference and impact the environment and relate to their brand at the same time. I don’t think everybody has to do the same thing. You need to figure out what makes the most sense for what your brand … or actually what your product is. Because you may not have a choice. Your product may have to be packaged in glass just because it needs to be protected that way. So if you demonize glass, what’s that brand supposed to do? Well, maybe they can make an impact some other way or use all recycled glass. I don’t know. It has to make sense for the brand.

“… sustainability or environmental claims … also need to make sense for that brand.”

Lisa McTigue Pierce
Sure. I think brands should also tell the truth. Like for glass, it’s infinitely recyclable. Sure, maybe it’s a little bit heavier than other materials, but it’s infinitely recyclable. It’s, you know, an inert material. It’s definitely a renewable material. So I think every material has its pros and … packaging material has its pros and cons. And maybe just, not forget about the cons, but highlight the pros.

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Right, right. Definitely.

Lisa McTigue Pierce
OK. Well, Tom, thank you so much for letting me pick your brain here for a little bit and giving us some insights into sustainability and packaging.

Thank you so much!

Tom Newmaster (guest)
Thank you.