Packaging

Cut the Packaging, Save Our Forests

Packaging symbolizes the disposable society we have become. More and more, the piles of packaging we are forced to deal with no longer only serve the essential functions of protecting and transporting goods and products, but instead are about branding, marketing, and sales. As a result, in the U.S. we generate 300 pounds of packaging waste per person each year and 32% of the entire domestic waste stream consists of containers and packaging.

In 2004, more than half of all the paper produced in the United States was used in paper packaging. In other words, more than half of all of the trees, forests, and habitat cut down, chipped up, and pulped became not products, but packaging holding the products consumed in our modern American lifestyle.

Over the last few years, Dogwood Alliance has been working hard to convince the largest users of paper packaging from Southern forests to use less packaging, use more recycled content, and ensure their paper packaging does not come from endangered forests in the South. Our efforts have focused on major Fortune 500 companies in the health & beauty industry, the music & entertainment industry, and major fast food companies

To date we have convinced a number of large companies including Sony Home Entertainment, Universal Music Group, GlaxoSmithKline and more to adopt environmental paper packaging policy. Because of these efforts thousands of acres of Southern forests have been spared from ending up as disposable paper packaging. We will continue working with more companies, including those in the fast food industry, to ensure greater protection for the forests and communities of our region.

Join us in encouraging large corporations to solve the packaging problem.

Learn More – get all of the facts on the scale and impact of the packaging industry

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