Evergreen Packaging Asks You to #ChooseCartons

It's amazing the things you take for granted. I thought I was pretty "green" because I garden, compost and recycle. I use energy efficient light bulbs. I try to do my best when it comes to being friendly to the environment. Then I had the opportunity to take the Evergreen Packaging choosecartons.com challenge.

Evergreen Packaging created the #choosecartons challenge to show to encourage and educate consumers to choose more environmentally friendly packaging. You can visit the Choose Cartons website and learn about the advantages of carton packaging. The interactive site is set up to raise awareness and tout the benefits of paper carton packaging versus other less green packaging.

You can also you play the interactive Carton Checkout game, get green tips, get information on carton recycling and be inspired by recycled-carton art. You can also help spread the news about cartons to civic organizations and schools and will find downloadable presentations and hand-outs to do so.

I took the challenge. I started by looking in my fridge and pantry for cartons versus plastic. What I found was a whole lot of plastic containers everywhere. I only found a milk carton, orange juice carton, egg carton and a carton of chicken broth. In the pantry I only found cartons of broth. There were also boxes of pasta and other stuff but what I noticed was that I had a lot of plastic containers and non-recyclable packaging. Wow, who knew I was so non-green!

It was surprising how many products are contained in plastic. When you start thinking about it, a lot of the items can be housed in carton. It can be done because a few weeks ago, I was in Costa Rica. While doing a little shopping with my mom at a local grocery store, I noticed that a lot of the same products that are housed in plastic here in the United States are packaged in carton there. I found that sauces, beans, laundry detergent etc. are not in plastic. I was impressed that Costa Ricans are taking the environment so seriously.

If manufacturers really thought about it, so many of the products we use can be packaged in carton and it would keep help the environment. Carton is so much better than plastic.

Here are some interesting facts about paper cartons:

* Over 41 million households have access to carton recycling, and that number is on the rise. In addition, cartons are made from renewable materials – more than 70 percent of the carton is made from paper, all from trees from responsibly managed forests.

* Packaging plays a very important role in keeping food and beverages fresh. The environmental impact of a package is just as important as the contents inside.

*Cartons are recyclable where facilities exist. The paper fiber contained in cartons is valuable. Recycled cartons are used to make products such as tissue, office paper, wall boards and other building materials. To learn if your community accepts cartons for recycling, please visit www.recyclecartons.com or check with your local recycling program.

* Cartons are made with renewable energy. More than 50 percent of the energy used to make the paper in Evergreen Packaging’s cartons comes from biomass.

* Responsible forestry promotes new forest growth, and these forests help to diminish greenhouse gases. Forests remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in trees. In the US, due to both increases in the total area of forest land and increases in the carbon stored per acre, an additional 192 million metric tons of carbon are sequestered each year through responsible forest management programs nationwide. This offsets roughly 11% of the country’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of removing almost 135 million passenger vehicles from the nation’s highways.

There is so much be to be said about choosing products in containers that help the environment. I think if we even made an effort to change even 10% of plastic containers into carton containers, we would be so much better off.

This challenge opened my eyes and now I am going to make a conscious effort to choose products that are healthier. You should take the challenge and see how much carton packaging you have in your refrigerator and pantry. I think you will be surprised as well.

As part of the campaign, Evergreen Packaging is also making a donation to Habitat for Humanity every time the #choosecarton hashtag is used. Share a #choosecarton fact with your friends and the donations to Habitat for Humanity grow!!

For more information on the #ChooseCarton campaign, visit their website. You can also follow #choosecarton on Facebook and Twitter.  

Evergreen Packaging is a global leader in creating fiber-based packaging solutions customized to deliver product freshness and brand distinction. Evergreen Packaging is a vertically integrated packaging company, delivering total solutions of barrier paperboard, technical expertise, equipment and service. Evergreen Packaging cartons have the eco-friendly attributes consumers want: more than 70 percent of the carton is made from paper derived from a renewable resource: trees. Cartons are also recyclable for an increasing number of households. In addition, our cartons are made with renewable energy – over 50% of the energy used to make the paper in our carton comes from biomass.

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Evergreen and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.”