From a barn in the middle of nowhere, Uwe Melichar took to the stage at the Breakfasti’val event by Quatre Mains to discuss the ideas and solutions leading the way in sustainable design.

An expert in sustainability and previous Pentawards Jury member, Uwe outlined 10 measures for ‘less but better packages’. Here’s a summary of what we learnt from him and what we can take forward in the quest for more sustainable packaging.

1. Avoid – Can we imagine a completely packaging free world? Is it feasible – most likely, not. The vision is that all supermarkets would be packaging free, but the reality is that this doesn’t work for every country in the world, for every item of food. So there needs to be a balance, not only between product protection, convenience, branding and communication, but costs and sustainability, too.

2. Reduce – ‘It’s pretty easy to reduce the volume of packaging!’ says Uwe. We’ve all been there when placing small order and receiving a ridiculous amount of outer packaging, but now there are some solutions. Amazon introduced frustration-free packaging as a way to reduce packaging waste in 2008 with the idea that it’s easier to open, less wasteful and more environmentally friendly than typical packaging. Automated customized packaging also works to design packaging that’s measured exactly to the item, hence reducing packaging. And of course, there’s plenty of ways that packaging can be repurposed, as shown by Bol’s repurpose packaging by Touch Design.

3. Paperization – Paper makes for the most sustainable packaging and most widely recycled, so how can we make the best use out of paper packaging, without any hidden plastics.

4. Recycling – Looking at redesign for ways to make packaging 100% recyclable, such as the classic Maille French Dijon mustard packaging, which has been redesigned from it’s traditional glass tub to be just that.

5. Composting – Back in the 70’s some packaging was used that is still hanging around today, it just doesn’t breakdown. We’re now changing to more compostable, biodegradable materials for packaging. There’s now a plethora of innovative biodegradable materials that can be used for packaging, such as Seedlip’s brilliant mushroom packaging.

Seedlip Mycelium

6. Eat It! – Yes really, edible packaging! A great example of this is Notpla Ooho edible packaging for water, perfect for marathons, saving on packaging and the waste afterwards.

7. Single Use vs Reuse – We’ve been upcycling for a long time, such a flour sacks in the 1930’s or milkmen reusing milk bottles. But single use packaging is still prevalent around the world, so there’s a big need for reusable packaging. There’s also the need for more of a circular system for reusable packaging, enter reuse.me. This clever system focused on sustainability, encourages packaging to be returned in store to be reused, saves trees and offers incentives to do so.

Reuse.me

8. Standards – This relates to different packaging industries having a ‘one size fits all’ mentality – such as Duvel with their reusable deposit bottle, they use a ‘pool bottle’ together with other international breweries for all of their beers– is there a world where one day this work across an entire industry?

Duvel

9. Technology – For example, Holygrail 2.0 uses digital watermarks to allow for increased efficiency at recycling centre to sort the plastic waste more accurately.

10. Perfection – The notion that if we do it, we have to do it perfectly needs to end. Not everything will work first time round, we just have to try again.

Uwe Melichar is an expert in sustainability, he's a Partner in Design Agency Touch and Owner of Melichar Bros.