DS Smith has introduced Shop.able Carriers, a line of recyclable, reusable boxes for supermarkets that replaces plastic shopping bags. They help provide consumers with a more sustainable and convenient packaging solution for grocery shopping.
The durable, stackable boxes – designed and manufactured by sustainable fiber-based packaging producer DS Smith – feature the company’s patented, food-safe and water-resistant Greencoat coating technology, giving consumers an affordable alternative to hard-to-recycle plastic bags. Shop.able Carriers are reusable, moisture-resistant, modular and 100 percent recyclable made from renewable resources.
Shop.able’s first user, a regional U.S. supermarket chain, is on pace to replace up to 100,000 plastic bags in its first year of selling the boxes in its stores. Supermarkets can create custom branded boxes, as well as incorporate sponsored logos and messaging from other partner brands.
Individual Shop.able Carrier boxes sell at retail price points similar to reusable plastic totes, with each box having the capacity to replace between five and seven plastic bags. Along with having them in checkout retail sales, supermarkets can also use Shop.able Carriers as a loyalty program benefit in online curbside pick-up orders.
“The Shop.able Carrier product line gives consumers the ability to help remove the billions of plastic bags used across the United States each year while at the same time delivering convenience and sustainability to consumers’ day-to-day shopping experience,” said Steve Cooper, global customer business unit director.
“This kind of innovative, sustainable packing solution is what more communities need to stem the tide of hard-to-recycle plastics and move away from single-use plastic bags.”
DS Smith’s North America Packaging and Paper division produces Shop.able Carriers at its U.S. specialty packaging plants. Company designers developed the intuitive, shopper-friendly box product line by reworking industrial packaging solutions DS Smith NAPP uses in the poultry and produce industries.
Shoppers can switch from single-use to circularity
According to data from the U.S. International Trade Commission, Americans use 102 billion plastic bags a year, and plastic shopping bags are only used for an average of 12 minutes by consumers, with very few of them ever being recycled. The new product comes at a time when many are closely examining the impact single-use plastic has on the environment.
To date, 18 U.S. states have enacted legislation to ban plastic bags, and major retailers have joined the Beyond the Bag initiative, a group seeking to identify, test and implement viable design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the current retail bag.
According to the organizations Beyond Plastics and the Last Beach Cleanup, less than 6 percent of U.S. plastic waste is recycled each year. Of the total volume of all plastics produced worldwide since the 1950s, only 9 percent of it has been recycled.
Driving circularity and reducing waste
In partnership with its customers, DS Smith lives by its purpose of Redefining Packaging for a Changing World, a key part of which is to support the transition to a circular economy – eliminating waste and pollution by design. By creating 100 percent recyclable or reusable packaging and helping its customers design out hard-to-recycle plastics, the company is keeping materials in use for longer.
Driven by its Now and Next sustainability strategy and partnering with customers, DS Smith has already replaced 762 million problem plastics with fiber-based alternatives since 2020, and is on pace to beat a goal of one billion plastics replaced by 2025. DS Smith has also created more than 30,000 circular-ready projects for its customers through its industry-leading Circular Design Metrics, a design analysis tool that helps customers drive sustainability performance.
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