Whilst recyclable materials are probably better than some of the ‘green washed’ compostable alternatives, they’re still an entirely unsustainable solution.

The first, and often overlooked, reason why recyclable packaging isn’t sustainable, is that very few materials can be endlessly recycled. Recycling paper, for instance, involves multiple stages of shredding, pounding, soaking and heating in order to turn it into the fibers we use to produce new paper. These fibers get a little shorter every time they go through that process. The shorter the fibers, the lower the quality of the new paper they can make. The fibers usually become too short for the lowest grade of paper after being recycled five to seven times.

Similarly, when you recycle plastic, its polymer chain grows shorter. If you recycle it another 1-2 times, its polymer chain will become too short and thus lose its quality, making it unrecyclable. So, in reality we can only recycle plastic 2-3 times before it becomes unrecyclable. What’s more, only an estimated 9% of plastic worldwide (and 18% in Australia) is ever actually recycled. The majority ends up in landfill, and can leak into our oceans and natural environments.

And again, just like compostable materials, even if we utilise recycled materials to produce our single-use packaging, there's still a massive manufacturing and shipping process that expends enormous amounts of energy, the majority of which is generated from fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, single-use packaging, regardless of how its made, is always unsustainable.

Unfortunately, compostable plastics likely create more environmental problems than they solve. In fact, compostable packaging has been shown to produce almost twice the global warming impact of traditional plastics.

One problem with bio-plastics is that the vast majority simply end up in landfill. Even when consumers try to dispose of them correctly, the majority can only be composted in industrial facilities. This means they're unable to break down in home composts, which won't reach sufficient temperatures. Even plastics certified as 'home compostable' are assessed under perfect lab conditions, which are incredibly difficult to achieve in a backyard compost heap. What's more, most kerbside green bins don't accept compostable plastics and other packaging. Which means placing compostable plastics in these bins is considered a contamination that spoils the entire batch of compostable material. This is especially true of coffee packaging, which generally includes an un-compostable component, such as a valve.

As it turns out, this is a huge problem, as studies show that plastic-like compostable material breaks down anaerobically in landfill (without oxygen) to release methane, a greenhouse gas that is about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

What's more, we have to consider the sustainability of producing packaging from bioplastics in the first place. They are biodegradable, which is good, but where does the bioplastic come from? The cultivation of cornstarch, for instance, aside from causing massive soil erosion, necessitates the heavy use of nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides that pollute streams and contaminate groundwater. Even if we utilise waste materials to produce these products, there's still a huge manufacturing and shipping process exhausting enormous amounts of energy, most of which is generated from fossil fuels like coal and petroleum.

Unfortunately, single-use packaging, regardless of how its made, is always unsustainable.

As the world's second largest trading commodity (25% of for which is consumed in cafes), coffee packaging is responsible for a massive, and largely unnecessary, contribution to single-use plastics and their associated Co2 emissions.

Ultimately, what makes all single-use packaging fundamentally unsustainable, be it recyclable or compostable, is the inexorable impacts tied to the cultivation of its raw materials. The production of any raw materials, regardless of their origin, only to be used once and thrown away is categorically unsustainable.

A functional, reusable packaging solution, therefore, is the only viable solution for reducing the waste and carbon emissions caused by the manufacturing and disposal of single-use packaging.

In a nutshell, Swag-Bags provide this solution, producing zero waste and preventing significant volumes of single-use packaging from ever reaching landfill. When it comes to Co2, our manufacturing produces a fixed and comparatively minimal carbon footprint when compared to single-use packaging of any kind. Simply put, the fact that a Swag Bag can be reused hundreds of times means the waste and carbon footprint it produces can be reduced to almost nothing per use.

We don't stop there though. We also calculate and quantify our residual carbon footprint before buying up 'emission allowances' in order to sequester more carbon than we generate.

'Emission allowances' are essentially a finite allocation of credits that enable major corporations to pollute. Once we've bought up these allowances, it effectively lowers the capacity of big polluters to produce Co2. The effect of removing 'emission allowances' is immediate, as opposed to 'offsetting' via 'carbon credits', which only shifts the problem forward.

If you are interested to know more about this project, you can read more on our partner's website, C2Zero .