With innovation in sustainable packaging materials, more companies are able to reduce their carbon footprint. Among them, The Home Depot eliminates harmful packaging materials on a large scale.
The Home Depot is able to reduce landfill waste and lower the overall packaging-related GHG emissions. All this becomes possible by eliminating certain harmful materials and overall reducing the amount of packaging used. The company’s packaging team applies science to create better packaging options as it partners with their private-brand product suppliers.
According to The Home Depot, one way to achieve this is to reduce the amount of packaging used and increase the use of sustainable materials. This will also protect the private-brand products sold. The company has redesigned more than 1,280 packages to reduce materials and size from 2017 to 2023.
The Home Depot Eliminates Harmful Packaging Materials: EPS & PVC
The company has eliminated EPS foam and PVC film in new packaging for private-brand products sold in Canada, the US, and online stores. The company has eliminated around 6.0 million cubic feet of EPS and over 39 million square feet of PVC film in 2023 alone.
Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam is a rigid and lightweight packaging material. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) film is a more flexible and thinner protective filler. However, they both are made from synthetic substances and take more than a century to biodegrade.
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The company mentions that they will continue to partner with their suppliers and keep these materials out of the packaging line in future. The packaging teams are committed to circularity and aims to make fiber packaging compostable and recyclable, or at least make them from recycled material in the US and Canada stores by 2027.
The company defined fiber packaging as follows:
- Blister cards
- Corrugate
- Molded pulp
- Paper
- Paper board
- Paper materials
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Candace Rodriguez, senior director of sustainability at The Home Depot, said, “We believe that by embedding sustainability into our business strategy, we can create long-term success for our associates, customers, communities, and shareholders. Our efforts to promote operational efficiencies, minimize waste, and drive product innovation will help us move our industry forward.”
Source: The Home Depot Achieves Milestone in Eliminating Harmful Packaging Materials
