Sanitation and Safety: The Benefits of Plastic

Plastic is a dynamic and versatile resource that offers convenience, peace of mind, and stability to numerous industries that consumers rely on every day. Shaping a plastic-friendly consumer mindset requires our collective investment in rethinking our systems, improving our plastic handling and continually educating our end users on the benefits of plastic.

Let’s takes a look at those benefits:

Innovation

• Plastic is strong, lightweight, and flexible; offering multiple product applications that add comfort, convenience and safety to our everyday lives.
• Versatile plastic material inspires innovation that help make life better, healthier and safer.

Product Protection

• Food stays fresh longer when packed in plastic, limiting spoilage.
• Plastic packaging also keeps foods separated, reducing the exposure of ethylene, which ripens produce.
• Packaging can be reworkable, aiding in retailer goals to avoid in food waste, removing produce that can spoil a packaged batch.
• Plastic packaging protects food from contamination and germs when it is displayed and handled.
• Sometimes light is bad, packaging protects produce like potatoes from direct like to protect from greening.

Efficiency

• Advances in technology has made plastic packaging more efficient. The average packaging weight for a product has been reduced over 28% in the last decade.
• Plastic is shatter-proof, which reduces the potential for injury or product loss during transport.
• Plastic provides necessary product protection, while reducing transportation weight, which saves fuel and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. For every ten percent reduction in weight, a car or truck will save five to seven percent in fuel usage. Reduction in vehicle weight translates into a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions: every pound of vehicle weight that can be eliminated means 25.3 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions are saved over the vehicle’s life.

Convenience

• Plastic packaging provides the convenience of product visibility during purchase and is easy to open.
• Tamper-proof, heat-sealed plastic packaging provides an added measure of consumer safety
• Flexible packaging adds the benefit of reusuability when a zip-top closure is added.
• Resealable plastic packaging supports multi-portion pack-sizes, minimizing the waste of multiple single-use packages.

Cost

• Plastic packaging provides affordable product protection and on-pack branding, creating competitive opportunity for buyers.
• Because plastic is an affordable material, it does not impede your products from being widely accessible to all socioeconomic groups.

Automation

• Automated packaging eliminates the risk of contamination by reducing human contact.
• Using an automated bagger and weigher results in a hygienic packaging process.
• Without compromising quality, a thin plastic material can reduce costs during manufacturing, resulting in improved costs for the end-product.

Environmental Impact

• Plastic can be easily recycled through curbside pick-up and store drop-off programs, which reduces litter and aids in community beautification. Click here to find a drop-off location near you.
• It takes less energy to manufacture and recover plastic compared to paper products