Cardboard, plastic, aluminium: it has been the holy trinity of product packaging for longer than anyone can remember. But with that ol’ global warming, has seen a more environmentally aware consumer arise. As a result we’ve seen some exciting ideas develop to cut landfill and pollution required to package our goods. Here are three modern technologies that could become kind of a big deal in the not too distant future.

Edible packaging.

How do you reduce waste and landfill from food packaging? You eat it of course! Edible packaging may have started out as the fanciful brainchild of Willy Wonka but it’s here, allowing us all to have our cake and it eat too (and the packaging it came in). KFC is the first of the big major chains to experiment with the idea with an edible coffee cup. The “Scoff-ee Cup” (get it?) is made from biscuit and melt proof white chocolate (yum) with a thin layer of sugar paper around the outside. They must have been encouraged by the results because they are now planning to roll out Edible Tortilla Bowls in India. Edible packaging is the delicious solution to excess waste; we can’t promise it won’t lead to excess ‘waist’ though.

Soluble packaging.

If you’re wanting to cut calories and waste at the same time, alternative packaging has the solution. Disappearing packaging! No it’s not quite magic, but when it comes to lowering our waste dissolvable packaging could do the trick. Sugar and tapioca foam are just a couple of compositions being experimented with for future water-soluble packaging. Apple rolled out solubles for their ear pods in 2012and we all know that they can start a trend. Let’s see if they dabble in more of this sorcery.

Compostable packaging.

This is the retro solution taking it right back to the ol’ school of biodegradability. All natural ingredients are being used to create packaging that is 100% biodegradable and naturally breaks down in compost. You may have seen the handy little biodegradable corn cups floating around. Their growth in popularity means that corn could potentially be a viable plastic alternative in the future. Bamboo has also been used to replace plastic with a natural and biodegradable option, particularly when it comes to disposable cutlery.

To wrap it up…

To keep up with the times packaging is gonna’ have to adapt to the environmentally conscious consumer. Despite how you feel about it all – being innovative and helping the planet is doing us all a favour regardless of how good your coffee cup tastes. Looking after the planet has never been more exciting.