One Brand's Solution to Eco-Friendly Packaging

By Nicole Adalmo, The Natural Edition

The Natural Edition is a collection of elevated basics created for the conscious consumer. From the start, our mission was to do things that we believed were better: materials sourced sustainably, manufacturing that does not harm people or the planet, quality that lasts, and products designed to make you feel good.   

For sourcing, we were able to find suppliers and manufacturers that only worked in the sustainable and ethical space and they were a big help guiding us on our product development. However, when we began to assess our shipping strategy, we hit a dead end. The only option our suppliers had was a plastic polybag. They had not been able to solve this problem, so we got to work researching truly sustainable options for packaging, and here's what we found.

The Problem
During production, nearly all garments are packed in a plastic polybag before leaving the factory. When you consider how many garments are made each day around the world that is a lot of single use plastic bags heading to landfill, or worse, the oceans! No plastic packaging for our brand had always been a non-negotiable.

The Options
We looked for an off the shelf alternative and what we found that was “classified” as eco-friendly alternatives were degradable, bio-degradable and compostable bags.

• Degradable bags are basically plastic bags that have chemicals added to break the bag down faster than regular plastics, so I'm not sure how they're considered environment all friendly, but they were an easy no for us. They also don’t break down completely but rather break down into micro-plastics so if they end up in oceans they can make their way into the food chain.

• Biodegradable and compostable bags are plant based rather than petroleum based which sounds better but both need to be under certain conditions (i.e. sent to special recycling facilities) to break down so they usually end up as landfill. Also, if either bag ends up in the ocean they are unlikely to break down any time soon.  So again, very misleading and still a no.

Our Solution
As these options did not fit with our mission statement, the only solution was to create our own packaging.

• We trialed many ideas and settled on a Kraft card pouch, the materials were able to be recycled and if, worst case scenario, they somehow ended up in the ocean the card quickly disintegrates.

• We designed a triangle shape with a sealable flap. The triangle shape means we could fit more in the cartons that shipped to the warehouse and also the triangle packed in a way that supported the shape of the packaging so nothing arrived squashed.
  
• We also designed the size of the our triangle packaging to fit in the cardboard packaging that will go to the customer from our warehouse to cut down on wasted space.
  

The packaging in the end probably took just as much as effort as designing the clothes but we think it was worth the effort! To check it out for yourself head over to www.thenaturaledition.com or follow us on Instagram @the_natural_edition. 
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Sustainable resource​s just like this are the exact thing you can find in our Deadstock District community. Many of our members, like The Natural Edition, have gone through great lengths and lots of research and R&D to create sustainable solutions to their problems and they happily share them with the community so together we can build a better fashion industry for people, planet, and profit. If you are ready to get resourced, join Deadstock District today.