One of the greatest forms of waste is packaging. Everything we buy comes wrapped in excessive amounts of plastic, styrofoam, and cardboard. Every year, we produce 300 million tons of plastic and 8.3 billion tons of plastic since the early 1950s. Of that 8.3 billion tons, 60% of that has ended up in landfills or the natural environment, and only 9% has been recycled. Single-use plastics have taken over our lives; they’re everywhere. To fight the problem, it needs to be addressed at its source. That is why brands, such as prAna, have taken the matter into their own hands to combat the growing global problem of plastic pollution.
In 2010 prAna, launched the Responsible Packaging Movement. The movement aimed to reimagine their product packaging. Their end goals were to eliminate plastic from their consumer packaging by 2021, as well as eliminate use of materials from ancient and endangered forests by 2022, and virgin forest fibers by 2025. To help the company attain these goals, they partnered with two non-profit organizations, 5 Gyres and Canopy. Although the movement began as a company based action plan, the Responsible Packaging Movement has become a large group of companies coming together to eliminate plastic packaging. In the first few months, the movement had already recruited 40 plus brands to join. Companies that choose to join the movement receive prAna’s packing guide and internal best practices. prAna’s director of sustainability and social compliance, Rachel Lincoln, says that the movement is meant “to inspire other brands to publicly set goals and give them the tools to get there”.
Inspired by prAna and their vision of a plastic free future for packaging, Mightly joined the Responsible Packaging Movement in 2020. For a small company, enacting policies to follow the movement’s goals was a challenging initiative for Mightly. Despite the size of the task, we pushed forward. Today, all of our paper packaging is FSC certified, printed on recycled and recyclable paper, sourced from non-virgin forest fiber, and our poly bags are made from recycled and recyclable materials. Mightly joined the Responsible Packaging Movement to better our company and better the world around us. Although we aren’t perfect, every step we take to reduce our use of plastic is a step toward eliminating plastic packaging worldwide.
To learn more about the Responsible Packaging Movement, click here.