Half Of British Consumers Would Pay More For Eco-friendly Packaging

Half of British consumers would pay more for eco-friendly packaging

Eight out of 10 UK consumers are doing their best to slash their plastic waste, and 46% of them would pay more for eco-friendly packaging.

YouGov research highlighted in The Guardian indicates that households want to get behind the eco drive and by paying more will enable companies to find alternatives to single-use plastics.

Young people lead the way with 51% of respondents aged between 18 and 24 expressing a sense of guilt about environmental damage, not nearly so marked by consumers in their 50s.

Fresh fruit and vegetable packaging was the main focus of 81% of shoppers, with household and cleaning products at 36%, homeware 32%, health, oral and hair items 27% and cosmetics 18%. Only 33% were opposed to paying more for biodegradable packaging.

Companies in the natural health sector are already ahead in many aspects of eco-packaging. An example is BetterYou which has unveiled its £700,000 Better Planet Project with a range of initiatives to reduce its environmental footprint and reliance on non-sustainable resources.

Initially, packaging across the entire commercial range is being switched to either plant-based, carbon negative plastic or plastic made from 100% recycled materials, and is one of the first companies globally to use ocean-recovered and recycled waste packaging for an entire product range.

With an estimated 12.7m tonnes of plastic entering the world’s rivers and oceans every year, BetterYou’s recycled packaging will use discarded plastic collected from shorelines. This initiative alone will remove 14 tonnes of plastic from the oceans each year – the equivalent of 2.8m plastic bags. The project will also use plant-based plastic, with sugarcane used as an ethanol source rather than fossil fuels.