Steps to make source-reduced and reusable packaging work for you

Efforts to decrease packaging waste and costs work best as part of a company's ongoing quality improvement program. This helps ensure management support, allocation of staff and resources and a structure to inform management about progress.

1. Organize a team
2. Ask for suggestions
3. Determine the best type of container
4. Test sample containers
5. Document final changes in cost and waste
6. Change one package at a time
7. Establish a feedback method
8. Build on your success!

1. Organize a team.

Individuals interested in reducing packaging waste make effective team members, especially people with good communication skills from departments affected by transport packaging changes. Purchasing and marketing staff, in addition to those who handle containers, are important. A facilitator from the team makes sure that progress, assignments and reports are distributed and that communication remains open.

• The team is the link between management and the "packaging handlers" to see that good ideas get support.
• The team prioritizes ideas, with those that have the greatest potential for cost savings at the top. However, performance standards must be known first. Employees who unpack materials, truckers, people receiving goods you ship, suppliers and packaging engineers can identify performance needs.
• The team evaluates cost and waste benefits for each packaging change.

2. Ask for suggestions.

People who handle packaging will have good ideas about how to reduce it. Make it easy and safe to offer suggestions. The flow of materials into, through and out your facility and assembly line is important to examine.

Questions to ask:

• Can this package be eliminated? Individually contained products can sometimes be bulked or concentrated.
• Can this package be minimized? Thinner, lighter or less packaging may do the job.
• Is a reusable package an option? A vendor may be able to refill a tray at your facility, or a reusable cart may be able to move a product from a supplier to the assembly floor and out the door.
• Can you use a recyclable package made with recycled content? Even minimized or reusable packages should be recyclable.

Encourage everyone, including forklift and truck drivers, custodial staff and the boss, to put their ideas into suggestion boxes. Signed suggestions allow recognition. Work cell or unit meetings and e-mail are other ways to gather ideas. It is particularly effective when team members write down coworkers' ideas. This also encourages leadership.

Don't forget to ask for ideas outside your facility. Suppliers who participate with you in "Just In Time" delivery systems are often excellent candidates for reusable containers.

3. Determine the best type of container.

Many types of source-reduced or durable packaging are available: bags, boxes, bins, totes, pails, drums, racks and pallets. Packaging suppliers will gladly supply samples and information. Reusable containers should stack, nest or collapse for back-hauling; they should wash easily. Whatever the container type and material, it should make handling, emptying and filling easier for everyone. Gather samples.

• Preliminary cost-benefit information can be obtained at this point to determine which, if any, merit a test run.
• Some samples may be clear winners; others may require help from a packaging engineer. Source-reduced packaging is effective if product damage does not increase. Reusable packaging requires closed-loop distribution.

4. Test sample containers.

Walk a sample though its distribution system to see how it works. Write down the opinions of users. Don't expect this to go smoothly, especially if your first effort involves distribution outside the facility. Changes of any kind are rarely accepted without resistance. Use the feedback you get to modify the container or the distribution system to maximize efficiency. Address everyone's concerns before proceeding and keep management informed. If issues are too complex or controversial, choose another suggestion and walk it through its distribution system. Go with the one that works first.

5. Document final changes in cost and waste.

Keep careful records of cost changes. Staff time decreases for purchasing, stocking, assembling, opening and disposing of single-use containers. Disposal costs go down. Product damage typically decreases. As environmental benefits are made known, reuse often improves working relationships in the facility, with suppliers, and with the community. Write up the issues and benefits, including the payback period.

• Use the most cost-effective container, but stay flexible. A nestable, corrugated plastic container may be best for long-term savings, but piloting with a reusable corrugated cardboard container may help uncover communication problems unrelated to packaging.

6. Change one package at a time.

Tests will show which packaging change has the best chance of success. Changing one package at a time allows people to adjust to the "reduce, reuse" principle and lets modifications be made without disrupting productivity.

Announcing the decease in waste generation helps people understand the environmental effects of their actions. If steps one through four were done well, this process can go smoothly.

7. Establish a feedback method.

After a packaging change, team members should ask everyone involved – suppliers, assembly line workers, maintenance, truck and fork-lift drivers – for feedback frequently so small problems don't become large ones. Keep management informed. Use staff meetings, newsletters, posters or e-mail to inform employees. Report to local citizen groups. Reward personnel who demonstrate commitment to reduce packaging waste and costs.

Build on your success!

Once the initial packaging change is in place, proceed with the next one. Depending on complexity, once the first change is done, more than one change may be made at a time.

Improved communication with employees and suppliers may uncover other opportunities for saving! Encourage the team to report these ideas as well, so that economic and environmental benefits continue to thrive in your company.

Reduced and reusable transport packaging does more than protect and move products with less cost and waste. For many companies, it is improving relationships and communication in the warehouse, on the sales or assembly floor, on the road, with vendors and with the community. It can do the same for you.

November 1998

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