Sustainable Packaging

Is a packaging Life Cycle Analysis what you need? / MJ Werlein from Adept Packaging

December 19, 2021 Cory Connors Episode 35
Sustainable Packaging
Is a packaging Life Cycle Analysis what you need? / MJ Werlein from Adept Packaging
Show Notes Transcript

https://adeptpackaging.com/
Do you need a packaging life cycle analysis?
What's the most sustainable packaging material?
What do you need to change to be more sustainable with your packaging?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-jo-werlein-9b179313/

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I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

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Cory Connors:

Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors I'm very excited today to introduce my guest MJ Werlein who is the senior sustainability packaging manager at adept packaging. Hi MJ. Good. How are you today? Corey? Good. Thank you so much for taking some time. We really appreciate it. I've I've been excited about this episode because what you guys do is very unique in the industry, in my opinion, to LCAs a life cycle analysis and you do a lot more than that. I'm sure, but that's my focus for this because it's in my opinion, very critical to the success of sustainable packaging. So can you tell us about yourself? How did you get into this crazy industry?

MJ Werlein:

Sure. Well, I went to Michigan state university and quite honestly, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And my first roommate was a packaging major and she recommended that possibly I take an introduction to packaging course as an elective, and I fell in love with it. I. The niche to agree that it was the opportunities that there was the science behind it. And back then, you know, it wasn't even as big as it has become over the years. So I feel very fortunate to have gotten, to grow with the industry and see all the progress that's been made in changing packaging and developing packaging and, and how wonderful it's become. I've worked in five or six different industries.

Cory Connors:

Well, that's amazing. I just interviewed Aaron from MSU last week. So that's exciting. He he's thrilled to see what's going on with their, their school of packaging. They were, like you said, they were the first school of packaging. That's amazing what a story. And I agree. Packaging is such a cool and interesting you know, field to be in, especially now. Yeah,

MJ Werlein:

it's definitely grown. And the, again, the opportunity to move from just creating something that's beautiful to creating something that's more sustainable is really a nice jump in. Moving in a nice direction.

Cory Connors:

I agree. Can you talk us through what adept packaging does that's unique and what you do? Certainly.

MJ Werlein:

So Adept packaging is a collaborative of packaging specialists and we're all from various areas in the package packaging industry, and our company itself provides different clients services, such as consulting recruiting and hiring. And cost and optimization for packaging. So clients come to us for different needs and we have probably over a hundred engineers to help fulfill those needs. I personally am working in the sustainability realm and so all of my clients and my focus is on clients that are looking for more sustainable packaging.

Cory Connors:

Right, which is a considerable growing market right now. I'm sure you're finding, like we are people are getting on board with this concept that packaging can be sustainable and that we can make positive changes to our every day items. That's exciting,

MJ Werlein:

definitely exciting. And I'm, I'm, like I said, I'm happy to be a part of it and discover the new things that are out there for. Type of market. I mean, they're coming back with edible packaging, which I remember looking into back at Starbucks years and years ago for their Via Coffee. Cory Connors: Oh, really? Yeah. That's fascinating. And it wasn't ready yet at the time. Right. People weren't really down with putting something that dissolved in their coffee and then digesting it.

Cory Connors:

It's funny how that works, right? Yeah. It's come a long way for sure. There's some soap companies and some other things that are making that kind of dissolvable packaging, which is fascinating to me. I'm excited to follow.

MJ Werlein:

Yeah, definitely in the beauty space and the detergent space and those types of spaces it's really taking off. I'm not sure if we'll ever really get to truly edible. Yeah, I guess it'll depend on what the material's made out of,

Cory Connors:

for sure. Yeah. And the, there will, I think there will be concerns of microplastic for a long time with things like that, in my opinion. But we'll see, like you said, it, it takes adoption from consumers or it won't, it doesn't matter how, how much cool packaging we have if they, if they don't like it.

MJ Werlein:

So changing consumer behavior is one of the most difficult things to overcome.

Cory Connors:

Right, right. And educating them on by them. I mean, us on what is sustainable and what is better for the environment is I think our job, I think we need to continue to share these, you know, this is why I started this podcast. I want, I don't wanna tell people about what's possible. I want to show them, I want to and, and get people excited about the possibility of being.

MJ Werlein:

Yeah. When I tell people what I do, and then they kind of wrap their head around it. They're completely amazed. And especially if you just throw out some figures of say where we're at with recycling and composting in this, are you with recycling being 50 years old and only having such a low collection rate, it amazes them. And I think. Educate them and then they educate others.

Cory Connors:

Yeah, I totally agree. Well, let's talk about a typical LCA. So for our listeners, most of them probably know that that's a life cycle analysis. And so what you're doing is a company will bring to you their current package. And you'll provide the LCA for that. And then you'll recommend new materials as an alternative that are more sustainable. Is that right?

MJ Werlein:

It typically a client will approach us, wanting to see what difference it would make if they made a change to their packaging. Is there a bit. Environmental difference. Do they save on greenhouse gases or fossil fuels or water? And once we understand what they're looking to do, then we will meet with them and define the scope of their project and what all will be involved with. Say their product line. Maybe they want to look at one specific area. Once we've defined that scope, then we will define the boundaries and the boundaries for an LCA, including. What you want to include in the LCA. So for instance, are you just looking at tertiary packaging to tertiary packaging or primary packaging to primary packaging? Or do you want the full primary through tertiary assessment and evaluation? Do you want the manufacturing piece included you want the converting piece included? So those are the boundaries that you need to look at before you start the LCA.

Cory Connors:

And then, oh, before you continue, will you explain tertiary to. Yep. Sure.

MJ Werlein:

Primary packaging is, you know, the primary packaging, the bottle secondary packaging would maybe be the master case, but it's shifted. And then tertiary would be the palletization of that. Right. So that's the final layer of that pack.

Cory Connors:

Thank you. Sorry about that. That's okay. I don't ever want to assume that people know what we're talking about. Cause we always have all this lingo, but it's, it's incredibly commonplace in our normal days, but I think some people that aren't necessarily packaging experts listened to this podcast. Thank you.

MJ Werlein:

Yeah, no problem. And then once we've completed the LCA, we provide that assessment and review it with the client and make a recommendation. From there, sometimes we're invited to continue with that client to actually go further and help them find suppliers, possibly design the package and even take it into commercialization.

Cory Connors:

Wow. Full service. Good. Yeah.

MJ Werlein:

Adept provides it all. end to end. Cory Connors: That's great. That's I, I, I found you guys when I was researching LCAs just, just for my knowledge, I wanted to learn about w what they are, how they work, you know, how much an average one costs, things like that, because people are asking me about this kind of stuff all the time now. And so it was good to meet you guys and learn about adept. People at Landsberg Orora will, will continue to come to you guys for LCAs. I think in the near future, I would love to be working with.

Cory Connors:

So, have you been surprised by any outcomes of any LCAs that you've done? Like you thought this would be better than that and it, and it wasn't.

MJ Werlein:

Well, the one thing to keep in mind that LCA is a tool, so it it's something to give a client direction to help them achieve. Sustain their goals. So if their company goals are to reduce greenhouse gases or reduce material, the LCA is just one piece of that big puzzle. So when you're looking at a packaging and as far as being, say, surprised as an outcome, you could have a package that has say no recycled content in it that you're proposing and no great end of life scenario. So that could be the new package and that doesn't seem like a great option, but when you put it up against the current packaging that they have, that has recycled content and has a good end of life stories such as recycling, you might find that it's, you know, it takes 10 times more greenhouse gases to produce. And I think that's the surprise for many people is that they focus so much on. Recycled content or the end of life scenario that they forget. What does it take to manufacture that piece of

Cory Connors:

packaging? That's an important point. I totally agree with that. And that's why these are so valuable for the environment. So thank you for the work that you guys are doing. Yeah. So what is, what do you think is the most sustainable material for.

MJ Werlein:

When, when we look at the pyramid of packaging from, you know, reduce material and resources to reuse, to recycle or composting, as far as, and then collection, maybe it's collected for waste to energy. And then finally through to disposal, w you know, it, we have to be mindful of what we are developing the packaging for. So keeping in mind, all of those things, you may find that you have a very material or resource intensive package that you're designing, but potentially it has a reuse of 20 times. And so personally, if, if it's a single use type of package, I would say paper seems to be the best material at this point, because it's most highly collected in the recycling stream. And it is a renewable resource. So the thing we're running into now, which is interesting with all of the supply chain issues that we're having, is that, you know, we're, we run low on things like toilet paper or paper towel or Kleenex, but the consumers are forgetting that a lot of that paper. And trees go into the boxes of the things they're ordering from Amazon or from another company. Right? So there's a big strain on all resources at this point.

Cory Connors:

Absolutely correct. And I was just on the phone or actually had an in-person meeting, which was pretty rare with one of our large printers for chipboard packaging. We do a lot of retail boxes and things like that. And they were saying you know, it's essentially force majeure they're, they're getting allocated paper, lots from production. Paper mills. And then those lots are getting allocated down the chain. So what you're seeing are lots of quality issues because mills are selling whatever they have all of it. And it

MJ Werlein:

just yesterday I went to the grocery store and they've started making two thirds high paper bags. Yeah, so the paper bags are almost half the size and I'm well, now I have to pay for five more.

Cory Connors:

It's kind of it's, you know, a lot of those things are very counterproductive and you know, whoever thought of that didn't realize that we're going to need to buy more because they made these less efficient. That's so silly to me.

MJ Werlein:

Counterintuitive, if they would have made the, the nicer ones, I would have only had to buy maybe two or three and then I would have used them because they're nicer and they're more.

Cory Connors:

That's it right? You continue to reuse packaging or, or even find a single use packaging that is easily recycled or work with the muni municipalities to make things more recyclable and make them easier to recycle. There's so many options.

MJ Werlein:

That's where we're lacking a lot. Is an infrastructure just within the United States. And that all municipalities throughout the country have different regulations around it. It would, it would be nice if on some federal level we had some sort of come together and this is what we should invest in and invest more in recycling and composting.

Cory Connors:

I definitely think that's coming with the onset of a extended producer responsibility already been passed in Maine and Oregon. I absolutely think in the next six to 12 months, it will be passed in more states. And then eventually, and like you said, federally, and then what will that entail? So many positive things. I hope I hope it doesn't just cause more problems. But what, what do you think it will accomplish?

MJ Werlein:

Yeah, it will definitely accomplish, I think it will force either. The government to understand that we need this infrastructure or everything has to go to landfill and that's not a good end of life story for anyone, right? So they really need to look long and hard at what we can do and how we can help the recycling facilities and the composting facilities and, and get our things to the right place. And as consumers just be good consumers about it and try, just try.

Cory Connors:

You know, I interviewed Ryan Smith, who's the CEO of Recyclops. And have you heard of that? No. Okay. So they are kind of a micro recycling company. They have an Uber style system where there people can log on and pick up recycling from local communities and consolidate it to the. Were there facility and then it gets recycled in bulk. And they're they're able to take things that other municipalities are not able to like in certain areas, glass or plastic over wrap packaging. There's another company called Ridwell that does the same thing, but he told me that there's only 38% of the United States has access to recycling.

MJ Werlein:

Wow. 50 year old program.

Cory Connors:

Right. It's incredible to me that, that it's so low. And he said you know, with companies like his and Ridwell those numbers will, will jump, but it's gonna take them municipalities to step up and say, yeah, we want to be re we want to be green. We want to be recycling. We want to be sustainable with our environment. I think you're right. I think it's going to take some government push in the right direction.

MJ Werlein:

Yeah. And one thing that's I found really interesting. I was in Boston and they have some companies that are basically going out on their own and providing five gallon buckets to homeowners at a fee and they put their composting or their food waste in there and they pick them up. And then they take them because there's no composting facility, really. They take them to farmers and the farmers take it and do all the composting. And I thought, what, how inventive and you know, so entrepreneur of these people to, to do this,

Cory Connors:

I love that. I think we're going to see more and more of that in the future. I hope. There's I think. You know, if the, if the government can make the laws that make it profitable for companies I think you're right. We'll, we'll see more and more of it even cost neutral, you know, even if we could have a nonprofit develop this, these concepts, I think that would. That'd be great. It would

MJ Werlein:

be wonderful. I really hope. And that the government does the right thing and just people, again, it it's down to the consumer so that if it takes a little extra from the consumer, that they do the right thing and they participate and do what they can.

Cory Connors:

Yeah, I agree. What's what's the best way for people to get ahold of you and

MJ Werlein:

sure. My email at adept would be sustainability@adeptpackaging.com

Cory Connors:

and check the website if you know, as well. Yeah.

MJ Werlein:

I bet www.adeptpackaging.com and yes, please reach out to us. We offer several different services and can help people with not only sustainability, but a lot of other cost optimizations and process optimizations. It's a really a great collaborative of people, right.

Cory Connors:

Thank you so much. We really appreciate your wisdom. And I'd like to thank Landsberg Orora for your continued support and sponsorship of this podcast. Please take the time to rate and review and share it with your friends so we can make more great episodes. Thank you again, MJ. Thank you very

MJ Werlein:

much, Cory