In recent years, many Americans in all parts of the United States (and many people in all places around the world, even) have been becoming more and more environmentally conscious. This push comes from the desire to better and protect our environment, which has begun to feel some of the negative consequences of our actions. Though sometimes it can feel like cleaning up the environment is too big of a task for any individual person to take on alone, it is important that we remember that each small change that we make to our lives has an impact on the environment, from switching to green packaging to turning off the water when you brush your teeth in the mornings and evenings.

Unfortunately, plastic packaging and other kinds of retail packaging have become huge sources of waste in all parts of the United States as well as other parts of the developed world. With nearly eighty million metric tons of packaging produced for various industries throughout the course of just one near, too much waste ends up polluting our environment. Around forty percent is anticipated on a yearly basis to end up in landfills while more than thirty percent pollutes both land and sea, leaked into the environment and insidious within it.

The damages caused to the ocean by the introduction of pollutants are particularly severe. It greatly impacts marine life, causing the death and destruction of many a marine life as well as marine communities. It also causes a huge financial investment by countries around the world, wasting as much as thirteen billion dollars on ocean clean up projects and other such initiatives in just one year alone. There are currently more than one hundred and fifty cumulative billion tons of waste products, namely plastic like tamper evident clamshell, in the oceans of the world. In fact, if our rates of pollution remain unchanged and definitive action is not taken to stop this rampant polluting of our oceans and our world as a whole, it is anticipated that there will be less fish in the ocean than there is plastic by the year 2050, less than half a century from now – just over thirty years.

Fortunately, there are steps that every person can take to lessen their negative impact on our environment. Switching to green packaging can be one such small change. The switch to green packaging is one that many companies are making. This green packaging often means that the green packaging is reusable or recyclable, and often it is both. This green packaging can range from thermoformed packaging to user friendly clamshell packaging, but all varieties of green packaging are become more and more widespread.

Companies are, in part, making this shift to green packaging because it is what the consumer has demanded. Statistics show that more than half of all consumers in the United States are looking to give their business to places whose packaging has shown a commitment to such issues in the environmental and social realm. And more than one fourth of these customers names green packaging as one of the most important things they look for when they decide which brand they should purchase. However, less than fifteen percent of such consumers feel that the effort made in green packaging has been enough, meaning that many companies still have many major strides to take when it comes to environmental protection and friendliness.

Green packaging is important for a number of reasons. Namely, the primary reason involved protecting and saving our environment, a hugely important and even noble task. After all, without our environment we would have nothing, and so we need to do our best to protect and support it. Though many people feel that they will not be able to make a difference, this is often incorrect. Even small changes like switching from environmentally unfriendly and wasteful packaging to green packaging can make a tremendous impact, reducing pollutants and contaminants all throughout the earth and particularly in places such as the oceans of the world. We can all make a difference, and we should all work to do the best we can to do so.