Image from Pixabay
For a long time, packaging was all about low costs, convenience and shelf appeal over environmental impact. While traditional materials like wood, glass and metal protected products well, they also carried major downsides: they were heavy, fragile and costly to produce.
After World War II, plastic, specifically polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), became the popular alternative for being lightweight, durable, versatile and cheap. By the mid-20th century, this led to what a Life magazine spread in 1955 called “Throwaway Living.” Nicholas Gilmore in a Saturday Evening Post article described the photo as showing “a family gleefully tossing their disposable napkins, plates, and utensils into the air, rejoicing in the reduced cleaning time.”
In the next decade and through the 1970s, scientists found plastic particles in seabirds’ stomachs in New Zealand and Newfoundland in Canada and warned about the presence of polystyrene pellets in the Atlantic Ocean.
The pivot in the 1980s
Public anxiety over pollution, resource depletion and overflowing landfills peaked during the 1980s, putting single-use plastics squarely in the crosshairs. This outcry forced governments, corporations and consumers to prioritize eco-friendly packaging.
As a result, recycling symbols fast became a grocery-store staple. By the early 1990s, businesses discovered that environmental marketing resonated with shoppers. Packaging suddenly featured claims like "recyclable," "biodegradable" or "made from recycled content," while new government regulations legally mandated waste reduction. However, the green movement was still in its infancy. Eco-packaging back then simply meant recycling or using less material, rather than the holistic sustainability strategies companies use today.
From eco-friendly to sustainable
The concept of eco-friendly or green packaging gradually evolved into what is now called sustainable packaging, with the shift being in both a change in language and a change in standards.
When companies first began responding to environmental concerns in the 1980s and 1990s, the terms green packaging and eco-friendly packaging labels referred to packaging that appeared better for the environment in one or more ways, such as being recyclable, containing recycled material, being biodegradable, using less material or being reusable.
In other words, a package might be called green simply because it was recyclable, even if it still required a lot of energy to produce or was unlikely to be recycled in practice.
Greenwashing
“Green” claims, however, could be vague or even misleading as a package could sound environmentally friendly without actually reducing its full impact. This led to criticism of greenwashing and advancing the broader and more rigorous concept of sustainable packaging. The latter idea necessitates asking whether a package was designed responsibly across its entire life cycle.
What sustainable packaging means
Sustainable packaging is about balancing three core pillars: environmental impact, economic practicality and social responsibility. It looks at the entire life cycle of a product, starting with how raw materials are sourced and how much energy and water are used during manufacturing. It also factors in how efficiently the product is shipped, how well it protects the goods inside and what happens to the packaging when it's done – whether that means reusing, recycling, composting or responsible disposal.
Regional regulations
EU: PPWR
The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), which took effect on February 11, 2025, is a major shift in how is packaging is regulated in Europe. Unlike the old directive, it applies to all member states. The PPWR introduces stricter rules to ensure packaging is lighter, smaller and made for recycling under standard EU rules. Depending on the product, packaging must be reusable or refillable, have clearer sorting labels for consumers and meet new minimum targets for recycled plastic content over time.
UK: pEPR
The UK’s Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) framework officially came into force on January 1, 2025, under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024. This landmark legislation shifts the full financial burden of managing household packaging waste away from taxpayers and directly onto the producers who place it on the market. Under the scheme, obligated companies must register and submit regular data reports, pay annual base fees to fund local authority waste collection and obtain recycling evidence (PRNs) to meet their environmental obligations.
US: state-level EPR
Although the US still does not have an EU-style national packaging regulation, regulation is emerging through state packaging EPR laws and related material restrictions. The general direction is toward state EPR obligations and material-specific rules. There is also increasing scrutiny of recyclability claims while more attention is given to compostability, PFAS and producer-funded infrastructure.
Canada: federal plastics reporting plus provincial EPR
Canada’s packaging regulation remains split between provincial EPR systems and federal plastics reporting requirements. The notable federal development is the Federal Plastics Registry. However, the registry does not replace provincial EPR reporting; it simply creates a federal data-collection layer for plastic products including plastic packaging.
Australia: active reform
Australia currently looks like a system moving from industry-led stewardship toward a more regulatory and EPR-backed model, though not yet as consolidated as the EU regime. That is an inference based on the government reform page and Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation’s (APCO) own published reform materials.
Japan: plastic resource circulation and established packaging-recycling laws
Japan’s Ministry of the Environment lists the newer Plastic Resource Circulation Act and the older Law for the Promotion of Sorted Collection and Recycling Containers and Packaging as part of the active legal framework.
India: plastic packaging EPR
In India, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) portal and related rules and guidelines administer the country’s EPR regime for plastic packaging. They require producers, importers and brand owners dealing in plastic packaging to register and operate through the centralized EPR system.
Current packaging practices
Although single-use plastics and oversized boxes are still the norm in packaging, companies are now focusing on right-sized packaging, paper or recyclable fillers and designs using fewer raw materials, thanks to the sustainability trend. Eventually, packaging will no longer be just about the lowest cost and convenience but about the total environmental impact.
References:
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/06/the-imprudent-promise-of-plastics/
https://specialpapers.fedrigoni.com/fed-world/what-is-sustainable-packaging/
https://specialpapers.fedrigoni.com/sylvicta/
PPWR: Guide to the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation - ImpactBuying
EPR Around the World | KM Packaging
Navigating Packaging Laws in 10 Regions Worldwide - Trayak
https://pro.viabox.com/blog/general/the-eus-new-packaging-law-just-took-effect-heres-what-changes/
https://www.gwp.co.uk/guides/what-is-sustainable-packaging/
The Evolution of Eco-Friendly Products: A Historical Perspective - EcoSanitex
