Our guide to conscious packaging after being necessary and sustainable establishes rule number 3, being nowaste. But what does nowaste mean?
Reduce product waste to zero (or at least to a minimum), making sure that everything is used and that even a small part is not thrown away together with the packaging, because it is impossible to withdraw or because it is no longer usable.
Easier said than done, one might think. Indeed, it is not easy to reduce waste.
Nowaste packaging: a must of food industry
The concept of nowaste is almost always connected to the food industry, where it is estimated that the waste consists of about one third of the food produced. Only in Italy about 4000 thousand tons of food are thrown away every day.
In most cases food is wasted because we buy much more food than necessary, in other cases waste occurs because food is badly stored.
Especially in times when take-away food is so easy to manage thanks to home delivery and the ever-increasing tendency to eat meals away from home, the theme of food packaging that allows waste to be eliminated is very popular.
Above all because although meals are increasingly consumed outside the home, partly because of a need for socializing and partly for convenience, when we go shopping, we always find ourself filling the cart.
Precisely because of this attitude we have a waste that derives from bad management of leftovers. Let’s think, for example, when we open a jar of mayonnaise at home and obviously, we don’t finish it within a single meal.
We close it and leave it in the fridge for an indefinite time. Certainly, most packaged products have a long-term best before date, but their occasional use can make it difficult to consume them completely before the expiry date.
The same jar, once opened, exposes the contents to contact with the air, and this can be cause for deterioration. If that same mayonnaise, however, were kept in an aluminium tube its duration, even once opened, could be much longer.
Why? Because the collapsible tube, being squeezable, lets the contents flow directly onto the serving plate or where it is necessary, without the need to use a tool such as a spoon to pick it up. Instrument that can be dirty and that could contaminate mayonnaise.
A nowaste packaging that preserves better
With the tube, in fact, there is no exchange of air, since the content is squeezed out and this, due to a mechanical effect, prevents the air from entering. The cap seals again the package which helps keeping the mayonnaise longer.
The very fact of guaranteeing longer-lasting conservation avoids waste, and on the other hand the packaging itself facilitates its use until the last drop. The collapsible aluminium tube lends itself to being nowaste precisely because it can be completely squeezed.
Let’s look at another example. There are foods that can naturally be used without waste. Cookies, for example, or breakfast cereals, pasta or rice again. More difficult to think of nowaste when it comes to jams jar or ready-made sauces.
You know those jars that are so beautiful to look at, from which, however, even the most technological spoon can never take all the contents. Have you thought instead that the same jam in the tube would be easier to use and would have a longer life?
Collapsible aluminium tube: a nowaste packaging
The collapsible aluminium tube perfectly embodies the concept of nowaste, since it allows the contents to be squeezed down to the last drop and guarantees optimal preservation, being resealable and thus preventing the contents from contact with air or external agents.
Furthermore, the use until the last drop can take place without contaminating the contents by acting on the package. For example, with plastic tubes consumer has often to cut to use the whole product, action unnecessary with the collapsible aluminium tube because it folds completely on itself.
Also, about rule number 3, we can state that the collapsible aluminum tube perfectly reflects the concept of conscious packaging.
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