Even though the use of wrapping paper has dropped since 2016, it’s not enough to make a real proper change.

Now of course, we can all relate that on Christmas Day we want to be a little lazy and simply enjoy the day, but throwing away tonnes of wrapping paper and plastic is not the answer. The increasing amount of poor waste management is causing major issues in the world; plastic pollution being one, is threatening wildlife, altering our ecosystems, and posing a risk to our health.

Want to hear a mind-blowing fact?

Only 1 percent of overall household packaging is a toy! So that other 99 percent, well that’s basically all unsustainable material.

Bigger Problems

An even bigger problem now that an overload of gifts are bought during this busy month, and parents are constantly working to earn more money, is the increase in home delivery. This has now become one of the biggest environmental problems, and the uprise in toxic chemicals releasing from delivery vans is taking a huge toll on climate change. On average, 14 million parcels are delivered a day.

Now we can all imagine this will be well over double the amount during the Christmas period. Businesses, like Amazon, for example, receive 47 orders per second during December. The amount of plastic they used for packaging was atrocious. In 2021, it was found that they wasted 709 million tonnes of plastic.

Since September, they have now introduced their recyclable paper after the continuous criticism they faced of wastage, which has been a great solution to reduce plastic waste and help the environment become cleaner.

As designers, it is crucial that we find new ways to produce eco-friendly packaging to make a difference in the world before it’s too late! Especially as we hit a busy time of the month when the use of waste increases by at least 30 percent.

At the Online Creative Design School, we understand that switching to eco-friendly materials as designers can be a struggle, especially when it’s important to maintain eye-catching packaging for consumers.

Therefore, we offer a Specialist Packaging Design course which covers different environmental issues to widen your knowledge and understanding of the overall topic as a whole, and ways to be eco-friendly whilst being a packaging designer.

This will help you to make a better change in the industry relating to the materials used in the world of packaging design, whilst evolving yourself as a designer to creating sustainable, yet attention-grabbing packaging.