For retailers trying to reduce single-use plastic, the obvious place to look is the parcel that reaches the customer. It's also only part of the story.
Plastic appears throughout retail supply chains long before an order reaches somebody's doorstep. Pallets arrive wrapped in film. Products are protected with bubble wrap or plastic cushioning. Cartons may contain air pillows. Loads are stabilised with plastic materials, while goods moving between distribution centres and stores can accumulate several layers of secondary and transit packaging along the way.
None of these materials appeared without reason. Plastic is light, strong, relatively cheap and extremely good at protecting products. The problem begins when a packaging specification remains unchanged long after the operation around it has moved on.
For retail and ecommerce businesses in 2026, that deserves attention. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) has made packaging waste a more direct commercial consideration, while Plastic Packaging Tax continues to apply to qualifying plastic packaging containing less than 30% recycled plastic. Packaging design, recyclability and material data now sit much closer to procurement decisions than they once did.
A sensible plastic reduction strategy therefore starts with a more useful question than 'How do we eliminate plastic?' Ask instead: where is plastic genuinely earning its place, and where could we use less of it?
Start With What You Actually Use
Before changing packaging, find out what is moving through the business. That sounds obvious, but retail supply chains have a habit of accumulating packaging specifications. A new supplier introduces one format, ecommerce uses another, stores have their own requirements, and the warehouse keeps ordering materials because they've always been on the purchasing system. Years later, nobody has a particularly clear picture of the whole thing.
A packaging audit can expose that complexity surprisingly quickly. Look beyond the packaging customers see. Include primary, secondary and transit packaging, then record what each material is made from, how much is used and why it's there. Stretch film, void fill, product wrapping, pallet liners, mailers, tape, strapping and protective components should all be part of the review.
Volume matters enormously. Replacing a tiny plastic component used twice a month may make for a good photograph for a sustainability report, but it won't transform your environmental impact. Cutting a few grams from something used 200,000 times a year might.
The audit should also include damage and return data. Removing material is not progress if products begin arriving broken. Manufacturing, repacking and reshipping a replacement comes with its own financial and environmental cost. Good plastic reduction starts with evidence rather than appearances.
Replace Plastic Where the Alternative Can Actually Do the Job
Some of the easiest opportunities are found in protective packaging. Bubble wrap is a good example. It works extremely well, which explains why it became so common, but many retail applications no longer require plastic to achieve the same basic function.
For products that need surface protection and cushioning, grip® PaperFlex provides an expandable paper structure that wraps around the product. It can be particularly useful for homeware, cosmetics, gifts and other ecommerce goods where both protection and presentation matter.
Void fill offers another opportunity. Allpack Paper Void Fill Solutions can cushion, block and brace products inside shipping cartons without conventional plastic void fill. For busy packing operations, systems such as BoxFill™ help make the transition practical at the packing bench rather than simply attractive on a sustainability spreadsheet.
This distinction is important. A plastic-free packaging material that takes twice as long to use may struggle to survive contact with peak-season fulfilment. Procurement teams should therefore assess the complete operation: protection, packing speed, storage, replenishment and cost.
The right alternative is the one operator can actually use successfully every day.
Don't Fill Space You Didn't Need in the First Place
Changing void fill material is useful. Needing less void fill is better.
Retailers often focus on what goes inside a carton before asking whether the carton itself is the right size. Over time, product catalogues change while box ranges stay remarkably stubborn. The result can be a small product disappearing into an oversized shipping carton surrounded by enough protective material to stop it migrating from one side to the other. Right-sizing attacks the problem upstream.
Analyse real order profiles and identify where boxes are consistently too large for their contents. A better range of carton dimensions can reduce empty space and therefore cut the amount of cushioning required. Smaller parcels can also improve pallet and vehicle utilisation, reduce storage requirements and give customers a much neater delivery.
For operations with particularly varied order profiles, packaging-on-demand or more flexible carton systems may deserve investigation.
There is a useful principle here that applies well beyond ecommerce: before replacing a packaging material, ask whether you can remove the need for some of it altogether.
Look at the Pallet From the Inside Out
Stretch film is likely to remain part of many retail supply chains because it performs a difficult job remarkably efficiently. Trying to eliminate it without understanding load stability can simply exchange one environmental problem for another.
A collapsed pallet isn't sustainable. The better approach is often to understand why so much film is needed. If cartons can slide against one another, the outer wrap has to work harder to contain the load. Warehouse teams naturally compensate by adding more film, particularly when a pallet doesn't feel secure after the first wrapping cycle.
CrabSheet™ Anti-Slip Pallet Liners approach the problem differently. Their high-friction, slip-resistant surface helps reduce movement between pallet layers, making the load more stable before the outer film is applied. They can be used beneath the load or as interleaving sheets between layers.
That doesn't automatically mean every pallet will require less stretch film. Loads need to be assessed properly, and wrapping specifications should be tested. It does demonstrate why plastic reduction should consider the whole packaging system rather than treating each material independently.
Sometimes the best way to reduce something on the outside is to fix what's happening inside.
Make the Plastic You Keep Work Harder
A serious plastic reduction strategy has to accept an unfashionable truth. Sometimes plastic remains the best material for the job. The objective then changes from replacement to optimisation.
Stretch film is again a useful example. Film specification, thickness, pre-stretch, application technique and load characteristics can all influence how much material is required to secure a pallet. Two warehouses wrapping identical loads could consume very different amounts of plastic simply because their materials and processes differ.
High-performance films such as grip® Film can help operations achieve effective load containment while controlling material consumption. grip® Vortex™ Stretch Film provides another route for businesses reviewing recycled content within their pallet-wrapping specification.
Application deserves attention as well. Manual wrapping inevitably introduces operator variation. One person may apply considerably more film than another because both are judging tension and coverage by feel. The grip® Hi-Lo Applicator can help make manual wrapping easier and more controlled, while higher-volume operations may find that Robopac™ pallet wrapping systems offer greater consistency over wrapping programmes and film application.
Reducing single-use plastic does not require every roll of film to disappear. Getting more performance from each kilogram can be a meaningful improvement in its own right.
Recycled Content Matters, but Don't Stop There
The UK's Plastic Packaging Tax provides a clear financial reason to understand recycled content. The tax applies to qualifying finished plastic packaging components containing less than 30% recycled plastic, subject to the relevant thresholds, exemptions and rules.
For procurement teams, this makes supplier evidence important. If recycled content forms part of a packaging specification, businesses should be able to establish what that percentage is and maintain the appropriate records rather than relying on an unsupported environmental claim.
Recycled content should not become the only measure of good packaging, though.
A heavier product containing recycled material can still consume more resources than a lighter high-performance alternative. A poorly specified film can contain impressive recycled content but require considerably more material per pallet. Packaging also has to protect the product reliably.
This is why comparisons should be made at the level of the pack, parcel or pallet, rather than simply comparing two materials in isolation.
Ask how much material is required to perform the job, how well it protects the product, whether it can be recovered after use and what evidence supports the environmental claims being made.
That produces a much more useful procurement decision than looking for the greenest sentence on a product specification.
EPR Has Changed the Commercial Conversation
Packaging waste now has a clearer financial consequence for many UK producers. Under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging, obligated businesses have reporting and, depending on their size and activities, financial responsibilities associated with the packaging they supply or import. Large producers can face waste disposal fees for relevant household packaging alongside their recycling obligations.
Recyclability is also becoming more commercially significant. EPR disposal fees are moving towards modulation according to the Recyclability Assessment Methodology, with less recyclable packaging potentially attracting higher fees and more recyclable formats benefiting from lower ones. That gives retailers another reason to understand the packaging they place on the market.
A material change should therefore be recorded properly. Procurement teams need access to material composition, weight and recyclability information, while packaging data should be kept sufficiently well to support reporting obligations and future decisions. The benefit goes beyond compliance though. Once you know where your packaging weight sits, it becomes much easier to identify where reduction projects are worth pursuing.
A sustainability target such as 'use less plastic' is difficult to manage. 'Reduce stretch film consumed per outbound pallet by 15%' gives an operations team something concrete to investigate, test and measure.
Plastic Film Recycling is Changing in 2027
End-of-life assumptions also need to keep pace with changes to the UK's recycling system.
In England, plastic film packaging and plastic bags are due to be collected with plastic recycling from 31 March 2027 under the Simpler Recycling framework. That is an important development for flexible packaging, but it doesn't make packaging design irrelevant. Retailers should still consider how easy the material is for the eventual user to identify, separate and dispose of correctly.
For ecommerce in particular, simplicity has value. A customer receiving a cardboard box, paper wrap and paper void fill has a fairly intuitive recycling task. Packaging containing several different materials, detachable components or less familiar plastics may require clearer instructions.
The question isn't merely whether a packaging material is theoretically recyclable. Consider what somebody standing beside their recycling bin is realistically going to do with it.
Reuse Works Best Where the Supply Chain Comes Back
Some of the largest opportunities for reducing single-use packaging may sit away from consumer deliveries altogether.
Retail supply chains often contain repeat journeys between suppliers, distribution centres and stores. Those closed or semi-closed loops can create much better conditions for reusable transit packaging than one-way ecommerce deliveries.
Reusable totes, containers, pallet covers and other durable systems can potentially complete many journeys before replacement. Whether they deliver an environmental or commercial advantage depends on the operation, though. Return transport, cleaning, inspection, loss rates and storage all have to be considered.
The word reusable on its own proves very little. A reusable container that disappears after one journey is simply expensive single-use packaging. Where the reverse-logistics system already exists, the calculation becomes far more interesting. Procurement teams can assess packaging over dozens or hundreds of cycles instead of comparing materials on a single trip.
This is one area where retail businesses may have an advantage over less structured supply chains. Stores and distribution centres already exchange goods, cages, pallets and equipment. Packaging can sometimes join that return journey.
What Should You Ask a Sustainable Packaging Supplier?
Choosing different materials is only half the job. Retailers also need suppliers capable of supporting the change. A credible packaging supplier should be able to discuss more than unit price. Ask for material specifications, weights, recycled-content information and evidence behind recyclability claims. Find out whether the supplier can maintain stock availability at your required volumes and whether alternative materials have been tested for the applications in which you intend to use them.
Operational support matters too. Can the supplier help review existing packaging? Can it identify opportunities to reduce material rather than simply sell an alternative? Does it understand pallet stability, ecommerce fulfilment and packing-bench efficiency well enough to see how changing one component could affect the rest of the operation?
Be cautious around absolute environmental language. 'Eco-friendly', 'green' and even 'plastic-free' can obscure more than they explain when they aren't supported by useful information. As you might expect, a good supplier should be comfortable discussing trade-offs.
Paper may be preferable in one application while a lightweight recycled-content plastic performs better in another. Reuse might make sense within a closed retail network but be impractical for direct-to-consumer deliveries.
If every question somehow creates the same answer, you probably aren't receiving much of a consultation.
Build a Plastic Reduction Plan That Survives Contact with the Warehouse
Once the opportunities have been identified, resist the urge to change everything at once. Prioritise high-volume materials and obvious waste first. Establish a baseline for material consumption, damage rates and packing productivity, then trial the alternative under real operating conditions.
Peak season is not the ideal moment to discover that a theoretically excellent new material takes operators twice as long to use.
Trials should involve the people who actually pack and handle the goods. Warehouse operators will often spot practical problems that don't appear on a technical specification. Procurement can then assess cost and supplier resilience, while sustainability teams measure the material impact. The result should be a packaging specification that works across all three areas.
If a change reduces plastic but increases product damage, investigate why. If protection improves but packing slows dramatically, review the process. If an alternative performs well but the supplier cannot guarantee volume during peak, supply risk becomes part of the decision. Sustainable packaging has to survive the real world.
The Best Plastic Reduction Strategy Is Usually a Collection of Small Changes
There probably isn't one dramatic packaging decision that will transform the environmental performance of an entire retail supply chain. There may be dozens of smaller ones.
A better-sized carton removes the need for some void fill. Paper replaces plastic cushioning on suitable product lines. Anti-slip sheets improve pallet stability. A higher-performance film reduces material consumption where plastic remains necessary. Reusable packaging replaces disposable formats on a closed route. Better specifications prevent operators quietly reverting to old habits six months later.
Individually, these improvements can look modest. Across millions of products and thousands of pallets, they become something much more substantial. That's also a healthier way to think about plastic reduction. The goal isn't to produce a warehouse that can claim it has banished an unpopular material. It's to create a supply chain where packaging is used deliberately, every component has a reason for being there, and unnecessary material is increasingly difficult to find.
Ready to Review Your Packaging?
If you're looking to reduce single-use plastic across your retail or ecommerce operation, Allpack can help you review the packaging you currently use and identify where materials could be removed, reduced, replaced or specified more effectively.
The right solution should protect products, work efficiently in the warehouse and make commercial sense while supporting your sustainability objectives.
Contact us or email sales@allpack.uk.com to discuss where practical packaging improvements could reduce single-use plastic across your supply chain.