In packaging, everything old is new again
Green Report
By Daniel Frankel October 29, 2007
Several years ago, the business of packaging DVDs was focused on flamboyant excess, with box designers employing whatever material—in whatever amount necessary—to make special-edition movie releases and full-season TV series sets stand out on the shelves of Wal-Mart.
Although a range of other environment-consciousness-raisers also factored in, it was in large part Wal-Mart that abruptly put an end to the packaging-excess trend with its sustainability drive. The wide-ranging initiative put the retail giant’s vendors under direct pressure to reduce their use of fuel and other materials, as well as cut the production of waste.
Most relevant to the home entertainment industry, Wal-Mart wants to reduce the amount of packaging in its stores by 5% by 2013. Not surprisingly, with Wal-Mart controlling more than half of all DVD sales in the U.S., disc distributors and their vendors want that too.
“Being able to brag that you’re Rainforest Alliance-certified is way bigger right now than producing something with foil-embossed stamping on it,” says Mickey Waite, marketing specialist for Wynalda Litho, a disc-package printer and designer that has dramatically stepped up its use of recycled papers.
With studio clients such as Warner Home Video publicly announcing plans to use recycled paper and generally cut down on the materials used to house their discs, package manufacturers, designers and printers are being forced to change both their products and their marketing approach.
“We’ve given over 30 presentations since November to home entertainment customers to talk about environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging,” says Linda Lombri, director of marketing services for Shorewood Packaging, which derives a third of its revenue from the home entertainment market. Besides using recyclable materials in manufacturing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Shorewood was behind one of the biggest eco-friendly media packaging announcements yet: supplying the PaperFoam disc holders that are found in all of Universal Music Group’s Millennium Collection CD releases, which are packaged entirely in recycled paper.
Other packaging vendors are making headway with all-recycled-paper products. Napco has introduced a product that includes a “100% post-consumer waste pulp paperboard” disc tray, which is garnering strong interest from studios, including Gaiam, according to Jerry Pearce, Napco executive VP. Napco also is working on a version of the product for high-definition packaging, he says.
The eco-friendly push has intensified the “paper-vs.-plastic” rivalry that naturally exists within the media packaging realm, with recycled paper catching on as the go-to renewable material and manufacturers of polypropylene-based products being put on the marketing defensive.
“We use 100% clear, clean polypropylene in our products, which can be recycled over and over again,” says Shelli Kaiser, executive director of marketing for Nexpak, one of the largest producers of DVD cases.
Besides touting products such as the Stackpak, which reduces the amount of plastics used to hold discs in place, Kaiser is working to educate studio clients on the difference between Nexpak polypropylene and much of that derived from Chinese sources, which she says is often “regrind” based on components such as car batteries.
Meanwhile, another media packaging heavyweight, AGI Media, is readying the introduction of a disc tray made out of 100% recycled plastic, as well as board packs made entirely of recycled paper. Additionally, 10% of the paper used for its standard DVD and CD products will consist of 10% post-consumer recyclables.
“We have some really exciting products coming to the market this spring,” notes AGI chief creative officer Norm Ung, who’s leading the company’s eco-friendly push. “I think we have a home run in the making right now.”