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Are you looking for biodegradable packaging and compostable packaging solutions?
If you’re looking to reduce your company’s carbon footprint with more eco-friendly packaging, mailers, and shipping options, CarePac offers a variety of custom printed compostable packaging solutions for you to choose from. Since there’s a lot of hype about biodegradable paper, many companies are trying to cash in on its popularity. Sadly, many of their products aren’t as biodegradable as they’d like you to believe.
That’s where we come in. Our plant-based biodegradable packaging will decompose when exposed to the environment. It’s manufactured from an eco-friendly material that’s manufactured from sugar cane, starch, and corn, and represents the fulfillment of the dream of cost-efficient, non-petroleum plastic production for stickers, pouches, and envelopes.
Biodegradable vs compostable vs recyclable: What’s the difference?
The terms recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable are often used interchangeably, but they actually refer to three different processes. CarePac believes it’s important for our customers to learn and understand the differences between the three, so here’s a brief overview of each:
Recyclable
Recycled items still have useful chemical properties after serving their original purpose and can be remanufactured into new products after use. Common products that are recycled include glass bottles, paper, and aluminum cans.
Compostable
Compostable packaging biodegrades within 180 days or less under controlled composting conditions -- high humidity, high temperature, and the presence of bacteria. Most compostable paper have to be sent to a special composting plant to be composted.
Biodegradable
Biodegradable paper doesn't have to be sent to a particular facility or be exposed to a perfect mix of humidity, temperature, and bacteria. Instead, they break down and decompose in their natural environment.
As you can see, the differences in recyclabed, compostable, and biodegradable items come down to how they break down in the environment and how involved the end consumer needs to be. When it comes to recycling and composting, end-users need to actively place their products in a recycling bin or send it to a special composting facility. With biodegradable materials, they will biodegrade regardless of where they end up, which makes this type of paper better choice for many users.
Biodegradable packaging: Things to consider
If you’re thinking about using biodegradable paper solutions to package your products, there are a few things to consider, including:
Speed of use
Will your product be consumed/used immediately or will it sit on a shelf or in its mailer for a lengthy period of time?
Preservation
Does your product contain preservatives or naturally have a long shelf life due to its composition? Or, is it especially prone to decay?
Drying
Is your product susceptible to drying out?
Moisture content
Do you need an extended shelf life / does your product have a high moisture content?
Some common examples of products that don’t require barrier packaging are fruits and vegetables, fresh bread, and bakery items. Since these items will be consumed almost right away, they can easily be packaged in custom compostable packaging.
Curious about whether or not recycled packaging is right for your product? Shop our products, or reach out to our helpful customer service team about your packaging for more information!
Biodegradable packaging doesn’t have to be brown
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be stuck with ugly brown packaging if you want to be eco-friendly. We’ll help you create beautiful packaging that’s manufactured with sustainability in mind. Our products are designed to look great on a shelf and help your brand differentiate itself from the competition. All our products are fully customizable so you can dictate what your customers see and how they interpret your brand.
If you source biodegradable paper through CarePac we’ll work with you every step of the way to make sure you’re happy with your sustainable packaging. We can add logos, zippers, degassing valves, your company colors, and any other design specification you’d like to your packaging.
Have questions? Need help? That’s what we’re here for!
Biodegradable packaging FAQs
As a leading supplier of biodegradable packaging in the United States, we get a lot of questions from current and prospective customers. Here are just a few:
Q: What are biodegradable bags manufactured from?
Our biodegradable bags are manufactured from bio-plastics, which are plastics produced using renewable raw plant materials. Most of the biodegradable materials we sell are made of some combination of sugar cane, beets, and other starchy plants. Regular plastic is constructed with petroleum-based plastics and occasionally combined with other materials. With biodegradable plastic bags, you get a substance produced using renewable resources.
Q: Are compostable bags the same as biodegradable bags?
Compostable is a subset of biodegradable and as far as packaging is concerned these are very similar terms. Home composting refers to packaging that can be composted (biodegrade) under ambient conditions, while the more general “OK compost” may refer to industrial composting conditions, (solid waste facilities).
Q: What’s the difference between bio-based plastics and biodegradable plastic?
Although “bio-based plastic” and corrugated “biodegradable plastic” are phrases that represent two different attributes, the two terms are often used in conjunction with one another. When the terms are paired as modifiers with the term plastics, the phrase bio-based and biodegradable plastics denote a composition deriving from mainly natural substances that break down over time, with the environment, the materials’ composition, and the time-frame all factoring in how quickly the break-down occurs.
Bio-based and biodegradable plastics are relatively new plastic materials used by the food packaging industries. As these newer bio-plastics degrade, they emit a very low amount of carbon, so they leave a very low carbon footprint. They are overall much more environmentally friendly than conventional plastics. Because these materials are much less harmful to the environment than fossil-based plastics, their use has been on the rise.
Small amounts of fossil-based plastics are still used in making some bio-based and biodegradable plastics, but the amount of petroleum plastic used in making bio-based and biodegradable plastics continues to be reduced with the invention of new polymers. As a result, bio-based and biodegradable plastics leave significantly less plastic waste to damage the environment than do fossil-based plastics, and the amount of time required to decompose is reduced to three to six months instead of decades to hundreds of years or more.
Types of bio-based and biodegradable polymers are polylactic acid (PLA), biodegradable starch-based plastics, cellophane, biodegradable and bio-based polyesters, drop-in bio-based materials, polyethylene furoate (PEF), and others. New bio-based and biodegradable polymers are under development including PBS