March 24, 2025 • 39 mins
Plastic and paper waste from product packaging remains an environmental crisis, with millions of tons of packaging ending up in landfills and the ocean every year. Despite growing consumer demand for sustainable alternatives, many companies still struggle to balance eco-responsible packaging with cost, performance, and branding needs. Discover the challenges and opportunities shaping sustainable packaging alternatives with Elizabeth Corbett, President of Enterprise Sales at AE Global, a leading packaging maker. Elizabeth helps brands in the cannabis, health & beauty, and consumer goods industries transition to packaging solutions that are both smarter and greener. With over 25 years of experience, she has developed growth strategies and designed sustainable packaging for some of the world’s most iconic brands, including Estée Lauder, Starbucks’ Teavana, and Tiffany & Co. Elizabeth argues that businesses don’t have to choose between aesthetics, functionality, and environmental responsibility—they can have it all.
She also works closely with the Ocean Recovery Group, a pioneering initiative dedicated to collecting, cleaning, and recycling ocean-bound plastics to turn waste into valuable materials in an increasingly closed loop that can eventually eliminate plastic pollution. We’ll also discuss innovations in reusable, recyclable, and compostable packaging and how brands can achieve sustainability without sacrificing cost-effectiveness. Elizabeth suggests the best way to get sustainable packaging widely adopted is to establish rules that require post-consumer materials be used in new packaging. She points to New York’s post-consumer recycled paper bag requirements that changed design decisions for brands across the country. New York, California, Florida, or Texas, four big markets from which no national brand can afford to be absent, could transform the national packaging scene. Join the conversation for a discussion about extended producer responsibility, America's fragmented, fractured recycling infrastructure, and the benefits brands can enjoy when they lead the way toward green packaging. You can learn more about AE Global at aeglobal.com.
She also works closely with the Ocean Recovery Group, a pioneering initiative dedicated to collecting, cleaning, and recycling ocean-bound plastics to turn waste into valuable materials in an increasingly closed loop that can eventually eliminate plastic pollution. We’ll also discuss innovations in reusable, recyclable, and compostable packaging and how brands can achieve sustainability without sacrificing cost-effectiveness. Elizabeth suggests the best way to get sustainable packaging widely adopted is to establish rules that require post-consumer materials be used in new packaging. She points to New York’s post-consumer recycled paper bag requirements that changed design decisions for brands across the country. New York, California, Florida, or Texas, four big markets from which no national brand can afford to be absent, could transform the national packaging scene. Join the conversation for a discussion about extended producer responsibility, America's fragmented, fractured recycling infrastructure, and the benefits brands can enjoy when they lead the way toward green packaging. You can learn more about AE Global at aeglobal.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear, the
podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable carbon
neutral society. I'm your host, Metracolif. Thanks for joining the
conversation today. It's been a while. We've been trying to
process all the changes going on in the world and
think about what our mission is going forward, and that,
let me tell you, is to continue to push the
(00:30):
case for sustainability for regeneration in everything we do as
a society. And today we're going to talk about plastic
and paper waste, particularly from product packaging. It remains an
environmental crisis, with millions of tons of packaging ending up
in landfills and the ocean every year. Despite growing consumer
demand for sustainable alternatives, many companies still struggle to balance
(00:53):
eco responsible packaging with cost, performance and their branding needs.
And the result it's a world where company's convenience wins
over sustainability and the onnus to recycle is placed on consumers. So,
in other words, companies dump unrecyclable packaging into the market
and leave us to clean up the associated mess as
(01:13):
well as to pay the cost of doing it. Our
guest today is Elizabeth Corbett, President of Enterprise Sales at
AE Global, a leading packaging maker. Elizabeth helps brands in
the cannabis, health and beauty, and consumer goods industries transition
to packaging that is both smarter and greener. With over
twenty five years of experience, she has developed growth strategies
(01:36):
and designed sustainable packagings for some of the world's largest
and most iconic brands, including esday Lauder, Starbucks, Tivana, and
Tiffany and Company. Elizabeth argues that businesses don't have to
choose between aesthetics, functionality, and environmental responsibility. She says they
can have it all. She also works closely with the
Ocean Recovery Group, a pioneering initiative dedicated to collecting, cleaning,
(02:00):
and recycling ocean bound plastics to turn waste into valuable
materials and in an increasingly closed loop that can eventually
eliminate plastic pollution. We'll also discuss innovations and reusable, recyclable,
and compostable packaging, and how brands can achieve sustainability without
sacrificing cost effectiveness. You can learn more about Elizabeth and
(02:22):
AE globals work at AE global dot com. AE globals
all one word, no space, no dash a global dot com.
We'll get to the conversation right after this brief commercial break.
Welcome to the show, Elizabeth. How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I'm great?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
How are you doing well? Thank you for joining us.
It's you know, we've talked a lot about sustainable packaging
on the show and I was really impressible that AE
Global has done. Can you tell me as a big
picture question to start this conversation, what do you see
as the biggest challenges that brand when trying to transition
from a less sustainable to more sustainable packaging.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I think everybody's afraid it's going to cost a lot.
I think that's actually probably everybody's biggest fear, and it
can cost more depending on what you're going to do.
But I think if you go into it with the
mindset of trying to make it cost neutral or maybe
a tiny bit less or a tiny bit more, that's
probably the best way to go into it, and to
work with a good partner like an AE Global or
(03:30):
maybe your current packaging provider, or maybe look at new
ones to be able to look at it from a
big picture perspective and hopefully not leave anything off the table.
I think the other thing is make sure that you
have buy in from your whole organization. It's really critical.
I worked on a project last year with Cullagan Water
(03:51):
that was a pretty big project. Before I started working
with Colligan, I always thought of them as the Culligan man, right,
the guy who comes to your door with the big bottle,
And they're a lot more than that. And we worked
on a project with them that's launching, that's launched, that's
basically pictures that would it's their zero water. It competes
with people like Britain. And one of the things that
(04:11):
really impressed me was the first day, very first day,
we're sitting in the room with all these stakeholders in
Chicago and there were three stakeholders from their ESG team.
That was the first time that I had experienced at
and really saw the evolution of. Like I did a
project eight years ago that I still remember getting a
(04:33):
phone call. It was launching, right, we'd been working on
it for a year and a half. It's packaging for
like seven new product lines. I get a phone call
and it's one of their marketing people and they're like, hey,
I know we're launching this I need to find out
what's sustainable about the packaging we just did, and like, wow, okay,
so we started working on that a year and a
half ago. The good news is having grown up in
(04:55):
Oregon and having a sustainable mindset, there are decisions that
I had made for them and recommendations for them that
we're able to buy into that. Yes, they're sustainable things
that we did, but that never happens anymore. That is
something that's table stakes. It's in the very first conversation.
It's not over a year and a half into it.
(05:15):
We've already done all this stuff. It's our first question.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You suggested that it could be cheaper, is suspindy, I
think really potentially cheaper? And can you give me an
example of an opportunity to lower the cost of packaging
that could be more sustainable.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Absolutely. So. The number one cost in any package, whether
it's a jar or a box or a ten is
the cost of the material itself. So, for example, if
you're looking at a box, about fifty to fifty five
percent of the cost of that box is the material.
If you analyze that existing box, for example, and you
(05:52):
figure out that it's ten to twenty percent too big,
and you're able to write size that I save the
customer money, and I also made a sustainable move because
I reduced the amount of packaging they we're using.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Going beyond lightweighting, are there other strategies for reducing the
cost of packaging by turning to sustainable options, I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Don't really think of that as lightweighting. Lightweighting is different
from a cost eliminating some of the packaging. A good
example would be you might have a nutraceutical that for
retail it needs to be have a secondary package, but
maybe half of your business is direct to consumer, so
(06:33):
eliminate the secondary package for the DTC. I have more
and more customers who are open to having a different
experience for a direct to consumer versus in retail. So
that's a really easy way to reduce costs and to
make a move from a sustainability perspective, you're eliminating an
entire scue.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, you're also with direct to consumery of an interesting
opportunity to establish a subscription relationship that also includes reduced
package And that seems to me to be a really
potentially fruitful way to approach a consumer to say, let's
make a difference together it does.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's funny. Not everybody's open to that yet. From a
brand perspective, I'm a big believer in creating a really
beautiful jar that can sit on your kitchen counter or
it can sit in your bathroom counter and look really nice.
Feed would be a really good example. I have another
nutraceutical brand that we're working with that we've done a
really custom jar concept, custom color. It's going to be
(07:31):
a great experience for the customer and our whole design,
our whole idea was to be able to have it
on a kitchen counter and it would look fine there.
Like I wish my dog supplements came at a nice
jar because right now they're in a plastic jar on
my counter. So in that case, we were able to
go into the program together with my new customer, and
(07:52):
from the very start I said, hey, are you going
to have subscription? They said yes, then we need to
do a refill and a flexible. Because the flexible I
can do as a forty percent post consumer pouch. It's
going to be significantly less expensive than your jar, and
it's going to be significantly less expensive to shift. So
those are things to be hopefully, you know, coming up
(08:13):
as early in the conversation, But you'd be surprised how
many people aren't doing that yet.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Maybe they're afraid of how it looks for the brand,
right They feel that maybe it looks like it's downscaling
the brand. There are a lot of people who are
worried about how does it look to be flexible packaging.
There are so many things being done in flexible packaging
right now that are great from a sustainability perspective, and
long term there will be even more. But think about
(08:43):
how much less energy it costs to make that pouch
than it did the jar. Think about the fact that
I can make the pouch here and most of the
jars are still all made offshore because most of us
don't have a choice. So you look at that footprint
just easier. From a storage perspective, everything I can do
my pouch forty percent post consumer. Long term we will
have better recyclable options and long term better compostable options.
(09:08):
And a lot of that comes down to when you
asked your first question. I actually think one of the
biggest struggles that we all face is the fact that
in the US, our whole recycling composting system is very
complicated and doesn't work well.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Ragmented at nest.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's a really nice way to put it. And when
you you know, I we had talked about the fact
that I live part time in Seattle and part time
in South Florida, and one of the greatest things in
Seattle is I can compost and I can recycle almost anything, right.
And in South Florida, when I first got here and
moved into my home in Fort Lauderdale and figured out
I couldn't compost anything, I wrote them a letter saying
(09:50):
that they should start a composting program. I'm sure they
laughed heartily and put it on a wall because I
bet they don't get many of those.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But that's time showing up in Florida.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's exactly right. That's probably how people feel about Californians too, right,
or Oregonians. So I actually think that's one of the
bigger part of the struggles. And it's interesting, you know,
states like Oregon, Washington, California are all attacking the brand
owner about being responsible for what happens to the package
(10:20):
in the end life. Well, to me, they should be
looking internally right about what are we doing about making
it so it's easier for the consumer to recycle or
compost something well.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So that brings us to the concept of extended producer responsibility.
And how do they share the cost with the brands
of making it easy for consumers to bring the material
back to potentially reuse.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
How do you.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
See the evolution of EPR over the course of the
next decade, particularly in this strange political environment we're in.
You do you believe that brands are ready to co
invest to make the economy circular.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I think they will do the bare minimum to be
to meet the regulation. Okay, and not to be negative,
I think everybody I work with a lot of brands
that are above board and trying to do the right thing.
And we're already trying. I mean, there are so many
brands that we're trying to do the right thing before
any of this happened, right, making sure my packaging has
(11:24):
some recycled content if possible, making sure that it's recyclable,
trying to think about the overall footprint. The whole responsibility
feature for me comes back to them. I really think
that it's the municipalities or the states. You can't blame
it all on the municipality. You can't put it all
on them. It's got to be the states. And unfortunately,
(11:46):
federal government probably too helping to be able to develop
programs because like the state of City of Seattle has
figured out how to make money on composting. That's great, right,
I think San Francisco has, I know Portland has. It's possible,
but I think states have so many other issues that
(12:07):
they're dealing with, whether it's figuring out education or medicaid.
This fall is pretty I think, probably pretty low on
the tote bold, don't you think.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Unfortunately, Yes, However, we need to make progress across a
wide range of issues, and so one of the areas
that seems potentially valuable is consumer education about how to
get people to participate in the circular process. But what
you're saying earlier too, brings us back to this whole
question of design and storytelling. And you've done a lot
(12:36):
of work with very high end brands. What's the secret
to balancing luxury and sustainability and responsibility and a story
that you present to your consumer about why this product
and its packaging is most sustainable.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So I've worked with some amazing brands. I worked with
Tiffany when we were converting the paper that they use
for their bags and their boxes to fifty percent consumer,
and that was a big step. That was huge, and
something they decided to do at the time, which I
think is thoughtful, is if you're already going to make
a change, what else do you want to change? And
in their case, we changed. We helped them change the
(13:14):
pattern on that paper for only the third time in
their entire history. And that company is more than one
hundred and fifty years old. So there were a lot
of things that we kept in mind. One is, the
color is paramount. We all know that Tiffany blue is
Tiffany blue. You don't mess that up. So whatever we did,
it still had to be that shade. You could not
(13:34):
sacrifice the performance at all. So that box still has
to be beautiful, the bags still has to be beautiful,
It still has to have that beautiful pattern. And it
was funny they started this path because and this is
still not universal, but many states had put through that
you're if you were going to have bags, they had
to be recyclable, they had to be a certain percentage
(13:56):
post consumer. At the time, the highest post consumer amount
was somewhere between twenty five and forty and they said, well,
let's do fifth and it was a great process. It
took us about a year. Just for anybody who knows,
almost every high end shopping bag is actually made by hand,
and they're made in either Asia or some are made
in Europe, but these were made in Asia. So we
(14:17):
actually had to send some of our technical people to
their two facilities in China that were making the bags
to help them and get feedback because moving to a
fifty percent post consumer product is actually really different that
the fibers change the behavior of the paper itself or
or a howard response to the package. So we had
(14:38):
to work with their plants. We had to do some
tweaking on our side to make it so that that
looked perfect. It was a great learning process. So in
that case, SO and the other thing they moved to
at that point they moved to FSC and I don't
know if SO for Stewardship Council Certified, and they put
that everywhere. They put it in their sustainability report, they
(15:00):
put it on their packaging that it's FC and that
it's fifty percent post consumer. I like the fact that
they put it in everything. You could have decided to
only put it on the bag and not the box wrap,
and they decided to do it everywhere as part of
the sustainability direction.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Did they make that part of the story of shopping
at Tiffany?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Though I don't know about that, I know it's on everything.
It's part of the story of Tiffany. If you go
to their website, they are about sustainability and they do
talk about it, and this is part of the overall story.
They still leave with luxury. I think that Starbucks. I've
worked with Starbucks a lot too, and they have done
(15:37):
a good job of talking about sustainability in everything they do,
and whether it be cuffs, whether it's packaging that I've
done for them before, whether it's moving all of their
gift cards from plastic to one hundred percent paper. I
don't even know if you know that, but a lot
of people pick up a gift card at Starbucks and
they have no idea that it's paper, and that's part
of their sustainability story. You can't lose function. It still
(16:01):
has to, you know, speak to the story. I think
it's okay to lead with luxury or lead with your
brand and make the sustainability part of.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
The story absolutely. In fact, it just becomes one of
the scaffolding pieces of that story, but a critical one
and one that you can expose subtly, like on the
message this bag fifty percent post consumer and FSC and
so you know that's really the challenge is how do
you knit your story appropriately for the audience that you're
(16:30):
going to present it to. And that doesn't always mean
hitting them over the head with the fact something sustainable,
but reinforcing the value because it's sustainable.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Absolutely. I'm working with a new brand that I just
met with for the first time yesterday, and it's a
cool new product. I can talk about it because it's
called the can cooler. It's actually all made here in Florida.
It's one hundred percent stainless steel, and it's designed to
bolt onto like a yetti to help people remember it's
(16:59):
got a little bit garbage a bag that's part of it.
It's all sustainable and that way you can put your
cans or whatever it's in there. And he explained to
us how sustainability was part of his thought when he
started making the product, and when we were talking to him,
everything that we were talking about was had to be
one hundred percent recycled, had to be one hundred percent recyclable,
(17:22):
had to be something. It's going to be something that
we're actually going to end up making two hours from
where he's making his product. So everything about it, we're
trying to be thoughtful in terms of the sustainability statement,
and it's part of what his product is. But when
you see his product eventually on a shelf, like at
Shields in Wisconsin, I don't necessarily know if you're going
to go, oh, that's sustainable, but it's part of his story.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
There's a lot of lessons in this conversation, but we
have to take a quick commercial break or we're going
to be right back.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Let's get back to the conversation with sustainable packaging innovator
Elizabeth Corbett, who is President of Enterprise Sales at AE Global,
a packaging maker based in Miami. Elizabeth, You've done a
lot of work with the Ocean Recovery Group, which is
a social enterprise based in the Dominican Republic, and they
collect ocean plastics. How does AE Global integrate recovered ocean
(18:14):
bound plastics into packaging solutions?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
So we're actually one of the owners of Ocean I
was in the room when they decided to do it
almost four years ago, which I'm so lucky that I
was part of that conversation. The reason, in case anybody
wants to know, the reason it's in the Dominican Republic
is the Dominican Republic has the most amount of garbage
(18:38):
of any country in the Caribbean, which I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Is that because we export garbage to them, or are
they producing that garbage locally.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
It's two things. We are not exporting garbage there that
would be terrible. One is part of the jet stream unfortunately,
just ends up getting a lot of stuff on the
beaches there. The other thing is, and this is kind
of weird. I raised my hand in the room as
we were talking about building this facility for gathering and
processing what would have been the ocean bound plastic. I said, well,
what happens when we get it all right? What happens
when we clean it all up? And they laughed at me,
(19:08):
and they said, the problem is is that a deep
prime food is the primary cooking process for residents of
the Dominican Republic and it all comes in big plastic jugs.
So it's kind of unfortunately a never ending resource. So
what we do in that facility is we're gathering, processing,
sorting what would have been ocean bound plastic. We bring
(19:30):
it to Miami. Interesting, it's the only facility of its
sort in the Western hemisphere. There are other locations that
are doing ocean bound plastic, but it's all in places
like Malaysia, Indonesia, all southeast, which is great, but a
lot of times when you're bringing stuff in from that's
ocean bound plastic, it's already coming at you know, thousands
(19:53):
and thousands of miles, which which for me ends up
being not a great part of the process. I don't
feel good about that. So we are able to use
this material to make certain kinds of packaging. For example,
a Global is quietly probably the largest supplier of custom
packaging for the cannabis industry. So we have a product
(20:14):
called the easy Lock where we're able to make a
tray that's part of this child resistant packaging and it's
all made from ocean bound plastic now and it's also
fully recyclable. So not only is that, but we work
with Repurposed Global to also provide a full offset for that.
The offset that and we utilize, they utilize those funds
(20:39):
for trying to get other areas to use ocean bound plastic,
and ocean bound plastic isn't There's a lot of things
you can't use it for. So if it has anything
with a really complicated like living hinge, if you will
it does, it's very difficult to work. It's just like
paper when you think about it. The fibers just aren't
a strong, right. It's also not good for things like food.
(21:02):
Great what it is great for are something like I
know that they're working on converting all of the windex
fodels to ocean bound plastic. That is a perfect use
for ocean bound plastic, right, So it's a I don't know,
I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
It does, and a purse. The question about what you
can use recovered materials for is going to be different
for every package.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
You can also use it for things like furniture. It
has a lot of other uses. The difficulty with plastics
as a whole, I mean ocean bound plastic being part
of it, but at this point you can't reuse it
full circle for the same item that it came from,
and that is the most difficult thing. So that's why
(21:48):
you know flexible products you know, can't be recycled to
another flexible product that has food.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So the cannabis industry is an interesting case study because
they started in the era of sustainable packaging. Do you
see the industry having growing from that clean slate done
a better job of both providing a recyclable option and
lowering the overall impact of packaging overall?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I would say yes. I think the majority of packaging
that we make for the cannabis industry is either recyclable, recycled,
right sized overall. I think that when the cannabis industry
first really started going, let's say twelve fifteen years ago,
and I'll use California as a good example, you had
(22:33):
some crazy packaging, crazy packaging that was beautiful. It was beautiful,
absolutely beautiful, but really really overpackaged. And that is gone,
and it's gone, honestly, mostly because of cost. The one
thing that I think is an area of opportunity in
the cannabis industry to reduce waste would be the requirement
(22:56):
for child resistant packaging for inhalables. I just don't think
it makes sense. We don't require child resistant packaging for cigarettes,
but we require it for bait pens. You require it
for cartridges. You require it for pre rolls. Now, not
every state does. Michigan does not. I think you should
have child resistant packaging for edibles. You know that's scary
(23:17):
and you don't want your kids getting into it, or
your dog or whatever. But if your child decides to
break in and eat pre rolls, I think you have
a bigger problem. So that means that they're going to
get it right. So I just I think that there
are ways for the industry to address that. Part of
(23:37):
the problem in the cannabis industry too, and this is
a big waste, is that every state does their own
thing because it's not legal federal and the states don't
talk to each other. We keep telling them they should,
but they don't, and so everybody has their own requirement.
So packaging that works in Washington isn't going to meet
the regulations in Missouri isn't going to meet the regulation
in California, and so as a brand, you are forced
(24:02):
to create specific packaging for each one of those states.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's a big way our federal system can be completely
crazy sometimes. But what if you learned from cannabis that
you've been able to take to other industries and say
you know, you could do this and it wouldn't be
a heavy lift, and it might even save you money.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I don't necessarily think it would save you money, but
it is interesting that you have states that are requiring
post consumer content. So New York, for example, requires twenty
five percent post consumer content in any plastic packaging. Well,
I don't know you could make that. You could make
that national, right, I mean you could and it wouldn't
(24:41):
be hard. I mean the only thing that people would
get scared of is whether or not there's enough you know,
recycle content, which it's like anything. People keep asking me
to be able to put hemp and paper for example,
or in different packaging. The problem is is it's very
very expensive because there's not much of a resource for it.
(25:03):
Yet the price of hemp will go down as it's
more industrialized, As I have more options, I can make
hemp packaging, whether it be a jar where it's plastic
mixed with hemp, or whether it's a paper box. Same
thing with the recycled content. As we as demand grows,
then the market feeds that and then price will come down.
(25:25):
For example, for me, for twenty five percent post consumer
jars going into New York or let's say airless pumps,
but it's cost neutral.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Well, if you think about it from that perspective, then
it's creating the demand for post consumer material that's the
problem in this political environment. Do you see there's a
hope or maybe we come through this political environment and go, gee,
there is a national approach to this that would work,
that would drive demand for things like hemp, things like
(25:54):
post consumer plastics.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Take the federal part out of it, because I mean,
the environment's kind of strange. Regarding the environment, I'll use
I'm going to go back to the Tiffany story. Okay,
so when you had states starting to require twenty five
and forty percent post consumer, I'm Tiffany. I operate in
I'm just going to guess thirty states, right, I'm not
going to make a bag that only works in California
(26:19):
and Washington. Whatever I'm going to do is going to
work everywhere. So I have encouraged customers and shown them.
Let's say that they are doing flour and they're doing
packaging in five states, right, and New York is one
of them, which means that has to be twenty five
percent post consumer to try to encourage them to buy it.
(26:39):
In such a way that I get to twenty five
percent post consumer for five states, but it ends up
being cost neutral because it would be more expensive if
they only bought the New York pouch that way, but
if they bought their pouches for all five states, then
the volume grows, then my price comes down, and then
I'm actually able to give them that New York pouch
at the same price if they would have bought the
(27:01):
other states. That's I think the best way to do
this in terms of to drive more sustainability, more sustainable
actions in terms of packaging. Because if you have a
state like California who decides all flexible packaging has to
be twenty five percent post consumer, right, and we give
(27:21):
you three years to do that. If I'm a cracker
brand and I'm in fifty states, I'm just gonna use
the same packaging for everywhere, right, and you've given me
a couple of years to do that. Those kinds of
actions will drive more sustainable packaging everywhere, and we've already
done it. It happened on the shopping bag front. You
(27:41):
just have to give people enough time to figure it out.
You have to give all of us enough time to
fill the supply chain to make sure that we have enough,
that we have enough film and that works.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
What about global standards? The EU has the anti deforestation
requirements which require post consumer materials, a lot of paper products. Correct,
is that the is that is support for those global
standards potentially the best way for brands to drive the
price of these sustainable alternatives down.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
The paper part's hard only because we've been working with
post consumer fiber now for over thirty years and it's
improved significantly. So I still remember the first one hundred
percent post consumer sheets looked pretty bad. I mean there
was like chunks coming out, or it just it didn't print. Well.
(28:35):
It's funny how we've all evolved. Now you have just
even in the United States, you have great recycling streams,
You have great options for one hundred percent post consumer paper.
You don't have to sacrifice in terms of appearance. You
don't have to sacrifice in terms of cost. That is
possible in whether it be the rigid plastic jars, that's
(28:55):
possible in flexible packaging. I don't think it's a bad
eye idea. I think it just takes Again, you've got
to make sure that you have the supply chain. You
could follow certain requirements in Europe as long as you
have the supply chain to do it. I mean you're
I mean, their market's just smaller.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
So what advice would you give to a company that
listens to this conversation It says, boy, we should try
this sustainable packaging thing. What would you tell them to
what are the first questions to ask or decisions to make?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Look at you, there's two ways to do this. You
can choose perfect examples what we did with Culligan. We
did this with a new brand, and we did it
with an existing brand. And you can start from scratch
and make sure that it's understood at the very beginning
what you're trying to achieve and actually look at Okay,
does it cost me anymore to do thirty percent post
(29:48):
consumer in this packaging? Does it cost me anymore to
do FSC if there's plastic? You know, what's my cost
considerations for doing twenty five or forty percent? If it's
an existing brand? And and this is what we've done.
I worked with a brand last year that we had
It had one hundred and fifty skews and we sent
all one hundred and fifty skws to our location. I
spent two days personally with our VP of innovation looking
(30:11):
at every single box. In that case, we found probably
forty percent of the boxes were too big, and they
were shocked. This happens all the time. You have companies
that have bought brands, right Like I just came from
Expo West and one of the booths there had eight
brands that used to have their individual boots that they've bought, right. So,
(30:31):
if you're a company and you keep buying brands, I
guarantee you you're not looking at every box or bag
or anything of a jar that you've just bought. And
that's what happened to this company. So it was a
matter of looking at each one individually, figuring out there
were some items we could lightweight. They had five items
that actually had a plastic thermoform inserts that we were
(30:54):
able to convert to corrugated I mean that's an easy,
easy lift, right, really easy life. And in that case
we were able to make it cost neutral because the
corrugated insert was more, but we made the size of
the box smaller, so overall it ended up being cost neutral.
Making sure that in this case some of the products
had been manufactured in China, and so they were doing
(31:18):
a Matt Litho to it in China, so it was
making it not recyclable. They had no idea, right they didn't.
I mean, nobody had ever had that conversation with them.
And the one thing I would say is be really,
really open minded. Because when I gave this customer the
feedback and the very first meeting, and it was this
huge group of twenty people, and you have to remember,
you never want to tell somebody's baby that it's ugly, right,
(31:42):
And so at the very beginning of the conversation I
started getting some pushback and they were like, that can't be.
You know, there's no way that any of our boxes
are too big. And I had to take a step
back and I was like, hey, you guys have bought
all these companies, right have you personally held every single
one of these hundred and fifty boxes. I just did.
And I'm not telling you that you've done anything wrong.
(32:03):
My job is to help you, and in this case,
the goal was to save the money and to make
it more sustainable. I think it's being open minded and
literally as simple as having your whether it's a new
packaging provider who's offered to help you your existing ones
sit in a room with all your stuff, you'd be
surprised what you find is actually a great experience.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Empirical evidence can't be pretty compelling.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
It is, and also with fresh eyes.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Right, yeah, exactly, well, and that's why you bring somebody
in from the outside. One last question, could you put
yourself ten years out in the future and look at
what we're working on today? Are there particular innovations in
packaging that we're going to recognize? We're revolutionary in retrospect.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Getting compostable film? Right? So I am not a scientist.
I was pre meant for two years at UBO and
ended up hating chemistry, So there you go. I think
the issue with compostable film is that, by nature, it
starts to break down the moment it's made.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
So, and I've worked with somebody personally who unfortunately put
all of their potato chips in compostable bags made in
Western Canada where there's not a lot of humidity, sold
it through Whole Foods. Guess what when those bags hit
South Florida and the humidity hits them, You've got chips
that are literally going stale three months before their end date.
(33:26):
So compostable film, I feel will be a huge game
changer and it won't be ten years from now.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Do you see composite materials that include that compostable film
being fully compostable in the long term, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I do. I think that that can happen. And the
other thing is understanding the difference between home compostable and
industrial compostable. I mean that's an hour. We're back to
the municipality issue. Working with municipalities hopefully, like we talked about,
as you have more regulation that's driven by state that
can help everybody. And again, if if New York moves
(34:05):
beyond cannabis and says all plastic packaging that enters the
state of New York has to be twenty five percent
post consumer, well, if that's going to make a lot
of companies go okay, you know, we got to look
at all of our stuff and we're going to have
to make it all twenty five percent post consumer. Right.
It's if one of the largest is what they're maybe
fourth in the US, you'd have to make it happen
(34:27):
for everybody exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Or California or Texas or Florida could do this as well. Yep,
not as likely absolute, but the opportunity to create new
industries exists if we do so, and particularly in collecting
all this material that we're currently throwing away, it would
be amazing if we could turn that into value.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
And if I were an environmental organization, that's what I
would be doing to try to drive change, because that
that will make it happen. Because again, if I'm all large,
if I'm pack to go, I'm not going to have
a choice, right. You have to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well, Elizabeth, there's so much to figure out. But thank
you for spending time talking about it, because I think
we're further along the way.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I appreciate it. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
You've been listening to a conversation with Elizabeth Corbett, who
is president of Enterprise Sales at AE Global, a packaging
innovator that works with some of the world's top brands
to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging. You can
learn more about AE Global at aeglobal dot com. That's
all one work, no space, no dash, aeglobal dot com.
(35:39):
Elizabeth made an absolutely essential point. The largest states, and
two of them are blue states, have the power to
move national packaging practices by setting standards for the products
that are sold there. New York's post consumer recycled paper
bag requirements shaped packaging decisions for brands across the country,
and as she the best way to get sustainable packaging
(36:02):
done is to establish PCR requirements in New York, California, Florida,
or Texas for big markets from which no national brand
can afford to be absent. Now can that be done
in this political environment? Let's consider that. If anything, we're
being told by the administration that states and the market
are in charge. Well, okay, let's just take that at
(36:25):
face value. If a state like New York or California
wants to require packaging be recyclable, or if consumers demand
that they want recyclable packaging and that they want companies
to help upgrade the recycling system to handle more materials,
then let them decide. Don't tell them what to do.
Let them make the choice that you're talking about. That's
(36:45):
the freedom that we want. You may say it's not
fair for California to set higher standards, such as for
tailpipe emissions. But if you believe states not the federal government,
should lead, then pick your lane and let California take
the risk that Coke, Pepsi, Unilever, Procter and gamble Ford,
Chevy and all the automakers might move out of the country.
(37:07):
Just abandon the shoppers in those states. Let the states
decide and let consumers choose sustainability. It's better than allowing
ideology to dictate how we all live, because this is
the United States, not some authoritarian backwater. Freedom means choice,
So let's start choosing sustainability. That's the conclusion that we
(37:28):
reached here at Earth nine one one as we watch
the events following the inauguration. Okay, if the market rules,
let's use market power to take the world in the
direction of sustainable, regenerative products with packaging that can be
easily recycled in any community. That, folks, is the jiu
jitsu move that we can use to counter the anti
environmental dictates of the new administration. So would you share
(37:53):
this or another episode of sustainability in your ear with
a friend. We've got more than five hundred episodes with
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You are the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to
(38:13):
create less waste. Please tell your friends, your family, the
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(38:34):
your ear and we will be back with another innovator
interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself,
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of this beautiful planet ours. Have a green day.
Hello, and welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear, the
podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable carbon
neutral society. I'm your host, Metracolif. Thanks for joining the
conversation today. It's been a while. We've been trying to
process all the changes going on in the world and
think about what our mission is going forward, and that,
let me tell you, is to continue to push the
(00:30):
case for sustainability for regeneration in everything we do as
a society. And today we're going to talk about plastic
and paper waste, particularly from product packaging. It remains an
environmental crisis, with millions of tons of packaging ending up
in landfills and the ocean every year. Despite growing consumer
demand for sustainable alternatives, many companies still struggle to balance
(00:53):
eco responsible packaging with cost, performance and their branding needs.
And the result it's a world where company's convenience wins
over sustainability and the onnus to recycle is placed on consumers. So,
in other words, companies dump unrecyclable packaging into the market
and leave us to clean up the associated mess as
(01:13):
well as to pay the cost of doing it. Our
guest today is Elizabeth Corbett, President of Enterprise Sales at
AE Global, a leading packaging maker. Elizabeth helps brands in
the cannabis, health and beauty, and consumer goods industries transition
to packaging that is both smarter and greener. With over
twenty five years of experience, she has developed growth strategies
(01:36):
and designed sustainable packagings for some of the world's largest
and most iconic brands, including esday Lauder, Starbucks, Tivana, and
Tiffany and Company. Elizabeth argues that businesses don't have to
choose between aesthetics, functionality, and environmental responsibility. She says they
can have it all. She also works closely with the
Ocean Recovery Group, a pioneering initiative dedicated to collecting, cleaning,
(02:00):
and recycling ocean bound plastics to turn waste into valuable
materials and in an increasingly closed loop that can eventually
eliminate plastic pollution. We'll also discuss innovations and reusable, recyclable,
and compostable packaging, and how brands can achieve sustainability without
sacrificing cost effectiveness. You can learn more about Elizabeth and
(02:22):
AE globals work at AE global dot com. AE globals
all one word, no space, no dash a global dot com.
We'll get to the conversation right after this brief commercial break.
Welcome to the show, Elizabeth. How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I'm great?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
How are you doing well? Thank you for joining us.
It's you know, we've talked a lot about sustainable packaging
on the show and I was really impressible that AE
Global has done. Can you tell me as a big
picture question to start this conversation, what do you see
as the biggest challenges that brand when trying to transition
from a less sustainable to more sustainable packaging.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I think everybody's afraid it's going to cost a lot.
I think that's actually probably everybody's biggest fear, and it
can cost more depending on what you're going to do.
But I think if you go into it with the
mindset of trying to make it cost neutral or maybe
a tiny bit less or a tiny bit more, that's
probably the best way to go into it, and to
work with a good partner like an AE Global or
(03:30):
maybe your current packaging provider, or maybe look at new
ones to be able to look at it from a
big picture perspective and hopefully not leave anything off the table.
I think the other thing is make sure that you
have buy in from your whole organization. It's really critical.
I worked on a project last year with Cullagan Water
(03:51):
that was a pretty big project. Before I started working
with Colligan, I always thought of them as the Culligan man, right,
the guy who comes to your door with the big bottle,
And they're a lot more than that. And we worked
on a project with them that's launching, that's launched, that's
basically pictures that would it's their zero water. It competes
with people like Britain. And one of the things that
(04:11):
really impressed me was the first day, very first day,
we're sitting in the room with all these stakeholders in
Chicago and there were three stakeholders from their ESG team.
That was the first time that I had experienced at
and really saw the evolution of. Like I did a
project eight years ago that I still remember getting a
(04:33):
phone call. It was launching, right, we'd been working on
it for a year and a half. It's packaging for
like seven new product lines. I get a phone call
and it's one of their marketing people and they're like, hey,
I know we're launching this I need to find out
what's sustainable about the packaging we just did, and like, wow, okay,
so we started working on that a year and a
half ago. The good news is having grown up in
(04:55):
Oregon and having a sustainable mindset, there are decisions that
I had made for them and recommendations for them that
we're able to buy into that. Yes, they're sustainable things
that we did, but that never happens anymore. That is
something that's table stakes. It's in the very first conversation.
It's not over a year and a half into it.
(05:15):
We've already done all this stuff. It's our first question.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You suggested that it could be cheaper, is suspindy, I
think really potentially cheaper? And can you give me an
example of an opportunity to lower the cost of packaging
that could be more sustainable.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Absolutely. So. The number one cost in any package, whether
it's a jar or a box or a ten is
the cost of the material itself. So, for example, if
you're looking at a box, about fifty to fifty five
percent of the cost of that box is the material.
If you analyze that existing box, for example, and you
(05:52):
figure out that it's ten to twenty percent too big,
and you're able to write size that I save the
customer money, and I also made a sustainable move because
I reduced the amount of packaging they we're using.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Going beyond lightweighting, are there other strategies for reducing the
cost of packaging by turning to sustainable options, I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Don't really think of that as lightweighting. Lightweighting is different
from a cost eliminating some of the packaging. A good
example would be you might have a nutraceutical that for
retail it needs to be have a secondary package, but
maybe half of your business is direct to consumer, so
(06:33):
eliminate the secondary package for the DTC. I have more
and more customers who are open to having a different
experience for a direct to consumer versus in retail. So
that's a really easy way to reduce costs and to
make a move from a sustainability perspective, you're eliminating an
entire scue.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, you're also with direct to consumery of an interesting
opportunity to establish a subscription relationship that also includes reduced
package And that seems to me to be a really
potentially fruitful way to approach a consumer to say, let's
make a difference together it does.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's funny. Not everybody's open to that yet. From a
brand perspective, I'm a big believer in creating a really
beautiful jar that can sit on your kitchen counter or
it can sit in your bathroom counter and look really nice.
Feed would be a really good example. I have another
nutraceutical brand that we're working with that we've done a
really custom jar concept, custom color. It's going to be
(07:31):
a great experience for the customer and our whole design,
our whole idea was to be able to have it
on a kitchen counter and it would look fine there.
Like I wish my dog supplements came at a nice
jar because right now they're in a plastic jar on
my counter. So in that case, we were able to
go into the program together with my new customer, and
(07:52):
from the very start I said, hey, are you going
to have subscription? They said yes, then we need to
do a refill and a flexible. Because the flexible I
can do as a forty percent post consumer pouch. It's
going to be significantly less expensive than your jar, and
it's going to be significantly less expensive to shift. So
those are things to be hopefully, you know, coming up
(08:13):
as early in the conversation, But you'd be surprised how
many people aren't doing that yet.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Maybe they're afraid of how it looks for the brand,
right They feel that maybe it looks like it's downscaling
the brand. There are a lot of people who are
worried about how does it look to be flexible packaging.
There are so many things being done in flexible packaging
right now that are great from a sustainability perspective, and
long term there will be even more. But think about
(08:43):
how much less energy it costs to make that pouch
than it did the jar. Think about the fact that
I can make the pouch here and most of the
jars are still all made offshore because most of us
don't have a choice. So you look at that footprint
just easier. From a storage perspective, everything I can do
my pouch forty percent post consumer. Long term we will
have better recyclable options and long term better compostable options.
(09:08):
And a lot of that comes down to when you
asked your first question. I actually think one of the
biggest struggles that we all face is the fact that
in the US, our whole recycling composting system is very
complicated and doesn't work well.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Ragmented at nest.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's a really nice way to put it. And when
you you know, I we had talked about the fact
that I live part time in Seattle and part time
in South Florida, and one of the greatest things in
Seattle is I can compost and I can recycle almost anything, right.
And in South Florida, when I first got here and
moved into my home in Fort Lauderdale and figured out
I couldn't compost anything, I wrote them a letter saying
(09:50):
that they should start a composting program. I'm sure they
laughed heartily and put it on a wall because I
bet they don't get many of those.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But that's time showing up in Florida.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's exactly right. That's probably how people feel about Californians too, right,
or Oregonians. So I actually think that's one of the
bigger part of the struggles. And it's interesting, you know,
states like Oregon, Washington, California are all attacking the brand
owner about being responsible for what happens to the package
(10:20):
in the end life. Well, to me, they should be
looking internally right about what are we doing about making
it so it's easier for the consumer to recycle or
compost something well.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So that brings us to the concept of extended producer responsibility.
And how do they share the cost with the brands
of making it easy for consumers to bring the material
back to potentially reuse.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
How do you.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
See the evolution of EPR over the course of the
next decade, particularly in this strange political environment we're in.
You do you believe that brands are ready to co
invest to make the economy circular.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I think they will do the bare minimum to be
to meet the regulation. Okay, and not to be negative,
I think everybody I work with a lot of brands
that are above board and trying to do the right thing.
And we're already trying. I mean, there are so many
brands that we're trying to do the right thing before
any of this happened, right, making sure my packaging has
(11:24):
some recycled content if possible, making sure that it's recyclable,
trying to think about the overall footprint. The whole responsibility
feature for me comes back to them. I really think
that it's the municipalities or the states. You can't blame
it all on the municipality. You can't put it all
on them. It's got to be the states. And unfortunately,
(11:46):
federal government probably too helping to be able to develop
programs because like the state of City of Seattle has
figured out how to make money on composting. That's great, right,
I think San Francisco has, I know Portland has. It's possible,
but I think states have so many other issues that
(12:07):
they're dealing with, whether it's figuring out education or medicaid.
This fall is pretty I think, probably pretty low on
the tote bold, don't you think.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Unfortunately, Yes, However, we need to make progress across a
wide range of issues, and so one of the areas
that seems potentially valuable is consumer education about how to
get people to participate in the circular process. But what
you're saying earlier too, brings us back to this whole
question of design and storytelling. And you've done a lot
(12:36):
of work with very high end brands. What's the secret
to balancing luxury and sustainability and responsibility and a story
that you present to your consumer about why this product
and its packaging is most sustainable.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So I've worked with some amazing brands. I worked with
Tiffany when we were converting the paper that they use
for their bags and their boxes to fifty percent consumer,
and that was a big step. That was huge, and
something they decided to do at the time, which I
think is thoughtful, is if you're already going to make
a change, what else do you want to change? And
in their case, we changed. We helped them change the
(13:14):
pattern on that paper for only the third time in
their entire history. And that company is more than one
hundred and fifty years old. So there were a lot
of things that we kept in mind. One is, the
color is paramount. We all know that Tiffany blue is
Tiffany blue. You don't mess that up. So whatever we did,
it still had to be that shade. You could not
(13:34):
sacrifice the performance at all. So that box still has
to be beautiful, the bags still has to be beautiful,
It still has to have that beautiful pattern. And it
was funny they started this path because and this is
still not universal, but many states had put through that
you're if you were going to have bags, they had
to be recyclable, they had to be a certain percentage
(13:56):
post consumer. At the time, the highest post consumer amount
was somewhere between twenty five and forty and they said, well,
let's do fifth and it was a great process. It
took us about a year. Just for anybody who knows,
almost every high end shopping bag is actually made by hand,
and they're made in either Asia or some are made
in Europe, but these were made in Asia. So we
(14:17):
actually had to send some of our technical people to
their two facilities in China that were making the bags
to help them and get feedback because moving to a
fifty percent post consumer product is actually really different that
the fibers change the behavior of the paper itself or
or a howard response to the package. So we had
(14:38):
to work with their plants. We had to do some
tweaking on our side to make it so that that
looked perfect. It was a great learning process. So in
that case, SO and the other thing they moved to
at that point they moved to FSC and I don't
know if SO for Stewardship Council Certified, and they put
that everywhere. They put it in their sustainability report, they
(15:00):
put it on their packaging that it's FC and that
it's fifty percent post consumer. I like the fact that
they put it in everything. You could have decided to
only put it on the bag and not the box wrap,
and they decided to do it everywhere as part of
the sustainability direction.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Did they make that part of the story of shopping
at Tiffany?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Though I don't know about that, I know it's on everything.
It's part of the story of Tiffany. If you go
to their website, they are about sustainability and they do
talk about it, and this is part of the overall story.
They still leave with luxury. I think that Starbucks. I've
worked with Starbucks a lot too, and they have done
(15:37):
a good job of talking about sustainability in everything they do,
and whether it be cuffs, whether it's packaging that I've
done for them before, whether it's moving all of their
gift cards from plastic to one hundred percent paper. I
don't even know if you know that, but a lot
of people pick up a gift card at Starbucks and
they have no idea that it's paper, and that's part
of their sustainability story. You can't lose function. It still
(16:01):
has to, you know, speak to the story. I think
it's okay to lead with luxury or lead with your
brand and make the sustainability part of.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
The story absolutely. In fact, it just becomes one of
the scaffolding pieces of that story, but a critical one
and one that you can expose subtly, like on the
message this bag fifty percent post consumer and FSC and
so you know that's really the challenge is how do
you knit your story appropriately for the audience that you're
(16:30):
going to present it to. And that doesn't always mean
hitting them over the head with the fact something sustainable,
but reinforcing the value because it's sustainable.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Absolutely. I'm working with a new brand that I just
met with for the first time yesterday, and it's a
cool new product. I can talk about it because it's
called the can cooler. It's actually all made here in Florida.
It's one hundred percent stainless steel, and it's designed to
bolt onto like a yetti to help people remember it's
(16:59):
got a little bit garbage a bag that's part of it.
It's all sustainable and that way you can put your
cans or whatever it's in there. And he explained to
us how sustainability was part of his thought when he
started making the product, and when we were talking to him,
everything that we were talking about was had to be
one hundred percent recycled, had to be one hundred percent recyclable,
(17:22):
had to be something. It's going to be something that
we're actually going to end up making two hours from
where he's making his product. So everything about it, we're
trying to be thoughtful in terms of the sustainability statement,
and it's part of what his product is. But when
you see his product eventually on a shelf, like at
Shields in Wisconsin, I don't necessarily know if you're going
to go, oh, that's sustainable, but it's part of his story.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
There's a lot of lessons in this conversation, but we
have to take a quick commercial break or we're going
to be right back.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Let's get back to the conversation with sustainable packaging innovator
Elizabeth Corbett, who is President of Enterprise Sales at AE Global,
a packaging maker based in Miami. Elizabeth, You've done a
lot of work with the Ocean Recovery Group, which is
a social enterprise based in the Dominican Republic, and they
collect ocean plastics. How does AE Global integrate recovered ocean
(18:14):
bound plastics into packaging solutions?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
So we're actually one of the owners of Ocean I
was in the room when they decided to do it
almost four years ago, which I'm so lucky that I
was part of that conversation. The reason, in case anybody
wants to know, the reason it's in the Dominican Republic
is the Dominican Republic has the most amount of garbage
(18:38):
of any country in the Caribbean, which I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Is that because we export garbage to them, or are
they producing that garbage locally.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
It's two things. We are not exporting garbage there that
would be terrible. One is part of the jet stream unfortunately,
just ends up getting a lot of stuff on the
beaches there. The other thing is, and this is kind
of weird. I raised my hand in the room as
we were talking about building this facility for gathering and
processing what would have been the ocean bound plastic. I said, well,
what happens when we get it all right? What happens
when we clean it all up? And they laughed at me,
(19:08):
and they said, the problem is is that a deep
prime food is the primary cooking process for residents of
the Dominican Republic and it all comes in big plastic jugs.
So it's kind of unfortunately a never ending resource. So
what we do in that facility is we're gathering, processing,
sorting what would have been ocean bound plastic. We bring
(19:30):
it to Miami. Interesting, it's the only facility of its
sort in the Western hemisphere. There are other locations that
are doing ocean bound plastic, but it's all in places
like Malaysia, Indonesia, all southeast, which is great, but a
lot of times when you're bringing stuff in from that's
ocean bound plastic, it's already coming at you know, thousands
(19:53):
and thousands of miles, which which for me ends up
being not a great part of the process. I don't
feel good about that. So we are able to use
this material to make certain kinds of packaging. For example,
a Global is quietly probably the largest supplier of custom
packaging for the cannabis industry. So we have a product
(20:14):
called the easy Lock where we're able to make a
tray that's part of this child resistant packaging and it's
all made from ocean bound plastic now and it's also
fully recyclable. So not only is that, but we work
with Repurposed Global to also provide a full offset for that.
The offset that and we utilize, they utilize those funds
(20:39):
for trying to get other areas to use ocean bound plastic,
and ocean bound plastic isn't There's a lot of things
you can't use it for. So if it has anything
with a really complicated like living hinge, if you will
it does, it's very difficult to work. It's just like
paper when you think about it. The fibers just aren't
a strong, right. It's also not good for things like food.
(21:02):
Great what it is great for are something like I
know that they're working on converting all of the windex
fodels to ocean bound plastic. That is a perfect use
for ocean bound plastic, right, So it's a I don't know,
I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
It does, and a purse. The question about what you
can use recovered materials for is going to be different
for every package.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
You can also use it for things like furniture. It
has a lot of other uses. The difficulty with plastics
as a whole, I mean ocean bound plastic being part
of it, but at this point you can't reuse it
full circle for the same item that it came from,
and that is the most difficult thing. So that's why
(21:48):
you know flexible products you know, can't be recycled to
another flexible product that has food.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So the cannabis industry is an interesting case study because
they started in the era of sustainable packaging. Do you
see the industry having growing from that clean slate done
a better job of both providing a recyclable option and
lowering the overall impact of packaging overall?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I would say yes. I think the majority of packaging
that we make for the cannabis industry is either recyclable, recycled,
right sized overall. I think that when the cannabis industry
first really started going, let's say twelve fifteen years ago,
and I'll use California as a good example, you had
(22:33):
some crazy packaging, crazy packaging that was beautiful. It was beautiful,
absolutely beautiful, but really really overpackaged. And that is gone,
and it's gone, honestly, mostly because of cost. The one
thing that I think is an area of opportunity in
the cannabis industry to reduce waste would be the requirement
(22:56):
for child resistant packaging for inhalables. I just don't think
it makes sense. We don't require child resistant packaging for cigarettes,
but we require it for bait pens. You require it
for cartridges. You require it for pre rolls. Now, not
every state does. Michigan does not. I think you should
have child resistant packaging for edibles. You know that's scary
(23:17):
and you don't want your kids getting into it, or
your dog or whatever. But if your child decides to
break in and eat pre rolls, I think you have
a bigger problem. So that means that they're going to
get it right. So I just I think that there
are ways for the industry to address that. Part of
(23:37):
the problem in the cannabis industry too, and this is
a big waste, is that every state does their own
thing because it's not legal federal and the states don't
talk to each other. We keep telling them they should,
but they don't, and so everybody has their own requirement.
So packaging that works in Washington isn't going to meet
the regulations in Missouri isn't going to meet the regulation
in California, and so as a brand, you are forced
(24:02):
to create specific packaging for each one of those states.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's a big way our federal system can be completely
crazy sometimes. But what if you learned from cannabis that
you've been able to take to other industries and say
you know, you could do this and it wouldn't be
a heavy lift, and it might even save you money.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I don't necessarily think it would save you money, but
it is interesting that you have states that are requiring
post consumer content. So New York, for example, requires twenty
five percent post consumer content in any plastic packaging. Well,
I don't know you could make that. You could make
that national, right, I mean you could and it wouldn't
(24:41):
be hard. I mean the only thing that people would
get scared of is whether or not there's enough you know,
recycle content, which it's like anything. People keep asking me
to be able to put hemp and paper for example,
or in different packaging. The problem is is it's very
very expensive because there's not much of a resource for it.
(25:03):
Yet the price of hemp will go down as it's
more industrialized, As I have more options, I can make
hemp packaging, whether it be a jar where it's plastic
mixed with hemp, or whether it's a paper box. Same
thing with the recycled content. As we as demand grows,
then the market feeds that and then price will come down.
(25:25):
For example, for me, for twenty five percent post consumer
jars going into New York or let's say airless pumps,
but it's cost neutral.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Well, if you think about it from that perspective, then
it's creating the demand for post consumer material that's the
problem in this political environment. Do you see there's a
hope or maybe we come through this political environment and go, gee,
there is a national approach to this that would work,
that would drive demand for things like hemp, things like
(25:54):
post consumer plastics.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Take the federal part out of it, because I mean,
the environment's kind of strange. Regarding the environment, I'll use
I'm going to go back to the Tiffany story. Okay,
so when you had states starting to require twenty five
and forty percent post consumer, I'm Tiffany. I operate in
I'm just going to guess thirty states, right, I'm not
going to make a bag that only works in California
(26:19):
and Washington. Whatever I'm going to do is going to
work everywhere. So I have encouraged customers and shown them.
Let's say that they are doing flour and they're doing
packaging in five states, right, and New York is one
of them, which means that has to be twenty five
percent post consumer to try to encourage them to buy it.
(26:39):
In such a way that I get to twenty five
percent post consumer for five states, but it ends up
being cost neutral because it would be more expensive if
they only bought the New York pouch that way, but
if they bought their pouches for all five states, then
the volume grows, then my price comes down, and then
I'm actually able to give them that New York pouch
at the same price if they would have bought the
(27:01):
other states. That's I think the best way to do
this in terms of to drive more sustainability, more sustainable
actions in terms of packaging. Because if you have a
state like California who decides all flexible packaging has to
be twenty five percent post consumer, right, and we give
(27:21):
you three years to do that. If I'm a cracker
brand and I'm in fifty states, I'm just gonna use
the same packaging for everywhere, right, and you've given me
a couple of years to do that. Those kinds of
actions will drive more sustainable packaging everywhere, and we've already
done it. It happened on the shopping bag front. You
(27:41):
just have to give people enough time to figure it out.
You have to give all of us enough time to
fill the supply chain to make sure that we have enough,
that we have enough film and that works.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
What about global standards? The EU has the anti deforestation
requirements which require post consumer materials, a lot of paper products. Correct,
is that the is that is support for those global
standards potentially the best way for brands to drive the
price of these sustainable alternatives down.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
The paper part's hard only because we've been working with
post consumer fiber now for over thirty years and it's
improved significantly. So I still remember the first one hundred
percent post consumer sheets looked pretty bad. I mean there
was like chunks coming out, or it just it didn't print. Well.
(28:35):
It's funny how we've all evolved. Now you have just
even in the United States, you have great recycling streams,
You have great options for one hundred percent post consumer paper.
You don't have to sacrifice in terms of appearance. You
don't have to sacrifice in terms of cost. That is
possible in whether it be the rigid plastic jars, that's
(28:55):
possible in flexible packaging. I don't think it's a bad
eye idea. I think it just takes Again, you've got
to make sure that you have the supply chain. You
could follow certain requirements in Europe as long as you
have the supply chain to do it. I mean you're
I mean, their market's just smaller.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
So what advice would you give to a company that
listens to this conversation It says, boy, we should try
this sustainable packaging thing. What would you tell them to
what are the first questions to ask or decisions to make?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Look at you, there's two ways to do this. You
can choose perfect examples what we did with Culligan. We
did this with a new brand, and we did it
with an existing brand. And you can start from scratch
and make sure that it's understood at the very beginning
what you're trying to achieve and actually look at Okay,
does it cost me anymore to do thirty percent post
(29:48):
consumer in this packaging? Does it cost me anymore to
do FSC if there's plastic? You know, what's my cost
considerations for doing twenty five or forty percent? If it's
an existing brand? And and this is what we've done.
I worked with a brand last year that we had
It had one hundred and fifty skews and we sent
all one hundred and fifty skws to our location. I
spent two days personally with our VP of innovation looking
(30:11):
at every single box. In that case, we found probably
forty percent of the boxes were too big, and they
were shocked. This happens all the time. You have companies
that have bought brands, right Like I just came from
Expo West and one of the booths there had eight
brands that used to have their individual boots that they've bought, right. So,
(30:31):
if you're a company and you keep buying brands, I
guarantee you you're not looking at every box or bag
or anything of a jar that you've just bought. And
that's what happened to this company. So it was a
matter of looking at each one individually, figuring out there
were some items we could lightweight. They had five items
that actually had a plastic thermoform inserts that we were
(30:54):
able to convert to corrugated I mean that's an easy,
easy lift, right, really easy life. And in that case
we were able to make it cost neutral because the
corrugated insert was more, but we made the size of
the box smaller, so overall it ended up being cost neutral.
Making sure that in this case some of the products
had been manufactured in China, and so they were doing
(31:18):
a Matt Litho to it in China, so it was
making it not recyclable. They had no idea, right they didn't.
I mean, nobody had ever had that conversation with them.
And the one thing I would say is be really,
really open minded. Because when I gave this customer the
feedback and the very first meeting, and it was this
huge group of twenty people, and you have to remember,
you never want to tell somebody's baby that it's ugly, right,
(31:42):
And so at the very beginning of the conversation I
started getting some pushback and they were like, that can't be.
You know, there's no way that any of our boxes
are too big. And I had to take a step
back and I was like, hey, you guys have bought
all these companies, right have you personally held every single
one of these hundred and fifty boxes. I just did.
And I'm not telling you that you've done anything wrong.
(32:03):
My job is to help you, and in this case,
the goal was to save the money and to make
it more sustainable. I think it's being open minded and
literally as simple as having your whether it's a new
packaging provider who's offered to help you your existing ones
sit in a room with all your stuff, you'd be
surprised what you find is actually a great experience.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Empirical evidence can't be pretty compelling.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
It is, and also with fresh eyes.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Right, yeah, exactly, well, and that's why you bring somebody
in from the outside. One last question, could you put
yourself ten years out in the future and look at
what we're working on today? Are there particular innovations in
packaging that we're going to recognize? We're revolutionary in retrospect.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Getting compostable film? Right? So I am not a scientist.
I was pre meant for two years at UBO and
ended up hating chemistry, So there you go. I think
the issue with compostable film is that, by nature, it
starts to break down the moment it's made.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
So, and I've worked with somebody personally who unfortunately put
all of their potato chips in compostable bags made in
Western Canada where there's not a lot of humidity, sold
it through Whole Foods. Guess what when those bags hit
South Florida and the humidity hits them, You've got chips
that are literally going stale three months before their end date.
(33:26):
So compostable film, I feel will be a huge game
changer and it won't be ten years from now.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Do you see composite materials that include that compostable film
being fully compostable in the long term, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I do. I think that that can happen. And the
other thing is understanding the difference between home compostable and
industrial compostable. I mean that's an hour. We're back to
the municipality issue. Working with municipalities hopefully, like we talked about,
as you have more regulation that's driven by state that
can help everybody. And again, if if New York moves
(34:05):
beyond cannabis and says all plastic packaging that enters the
state of New York has to be twenty five percent
post consumer, well, if that's going to make a lot
of companies go okay, you know, we got to look
at all of our stuff and we're going to have
to make it all twenty five percent post consumer. Right.
It's if one of the largest is what they're maybe
fourth in the US, you'd have to make it happen
(34:27):
for everybody exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Or California or Texas or Florida could do this as well. Yep,
not as likely absolute, but the opportunity to create new
industries exists if we do so, and particularly in collecting
all this material that we're currently throwing away, it would
be amazing if we could turn that into value.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
And if I were an environmental organization, that's what I
would be doing to try to drive change, because that
that will make it happen. Because again, if I'm all large,
if I'm pack to go, I'm not going to have
a choice, right. You have to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well, Elizabeth, there's so much to figure out. But thank
you for spending time talking about it, because I think
we're further along the way.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I appreciate it. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
You've been listening to a conversation with Elizabeth Corbett, who
is president of Enterprise Sales at AE Global, a packaging
innovator that works with some of the world's top brands
to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging. You can
learn more about AE Global at aeglobal dot com. That's
all one work, no space, no dash, aeglobal dot com.
(35:39):
Elizabeth made an absolutely essential point. The largest states, and
two of them are blue states, have the power to
move national packaging practices by setting standards for the products
that are sold there. New York's post consumer recycled paper
bag requirements shaped packaging decisions for brands across the country,
and as she the best way to get sustainable packaging
(36:02):
done is to establish PCR requirements in New York, California, Florida,
or Texas for big markets from which no national brand
can afford to be absent. Now can that be done
in this political environment? Let's consider that. If anything, we're
being told by the administration that states and the market
are in charge. Well, okay, let's just take that at
(36:25):
face value. If a state like New York or California
wants to require packaging be recyclable, or if consumers demand
that they want recyclable packaging and that they want companies
to help upgrade the recycling system to handle more materials,
then let them decide. Don't tell them what to do.
Let them make the choice that you're talking about. That's
(36:45):
the freedom that we want. You may say it's not
fair for California to set higher standards, such as for
tailpipe emissions. But if you believe states not the federal government,
should lead, then pick your lane and let California take
the risk that Coke, Pepsi, Unilever, Procter and gamble Ford,
Chevy and all the automakers might move out of the country.
(37:07):
Just abandon the shoppers in those states. Let the states
decide and let consumers choose sustainability. It's better than allowing
ideology to dictate how we all live, because this is
the United States, not some authoritarian backwater. Freedom means choice,
So let's start choosing sustainability. That's the conclusion that we
(37:28):
reached here at Earth nine one one as we watch
the events following the inauguration. Okay, if the market rules,
let's use market power to take the world in the
direction of sustainable, regenerative products with packaging that can be
easily recycled in any community. That, folks, is the jiu
jitsu move that we can use to counter the anti
environmental dictates of the new administration. So would you share
(37:53):
this or another episode of sustainability in your ear with
a friend. We've got more than five hundred episodes with
five hundred approaches to sustainable business and living for people
to dig into, learn from, and act on. Writing review
on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us, Because, folks,
You are the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to
(38:13):
create less waste. Please tell your friends, your family, the
coworkers that you see every day, the people you meet
on the street, that they can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible,
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you for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is sustainability in
(38:34):
your ear and we will be back with another innovator
interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself,
take care of one another, and let's all take care
of this beautiful planet ours. Have a green day.
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