About This Project

Growing consumption has led to an increasing amount of waste packaging which has a direct impact on a nation’s environment. There is high demand for one-way packaging amongst manufacturers, however, there is less intention to design reusable packaging. This project is concerned with designing a guideline for manufacturers that contributes to reducing waste packaging through packaging attributes by conducting workshops, and focus groups.

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What is the context of this research?

One-way packaging travels from the consumers directly to municipal household waste to dump sites, however reusable packaging, which is used in the industrial supply chain, isn't thrown away as quickly. Reuse is an approach that requires forward planning, which means that, the consumer has planned to reuse the packaging before the purchase. There are a few researches that have investigated reusable packaging from various perspectives, some of which compare reuse with recycling and reduction. Also there are a few reusable packaging designs in the market but they have had little success due to lack of reusable packaging attributes. Reusable packaging attributes are the functional characteristics that are concerned with the ability of packaging to be reused.

What is the significance of this project?

In order to divert waste from landfills and successfully introduce reusable packaging in the market, it is necessary to design innovative reusable packaging products. Therefore, this project's question is:what are the main packaging attributes that can guide the design of reusable packaging?The expected results of this project can provide a road map for the manufacturer/designer who intends to design reusable packaging and can help designers/manufacturers in the early phases of packaging design to understand the reuse of packaging requirements and procedures. If there are high demand users in reusable packaging, it would delay the packaging being thrown into the bin which lead to reduce the amount of waste packaging. A result it will reduce the load of waste management.

What are the goals of the project?

This project aims to promote reusable packaging amongst industries. The main objectives of this project are to identify reusable packaging attributes that consumers prefer during reuse behaviour by concentrating in focus group meeting and using some products' packaging, and then investigate the environmental impact of these attributes identified through experts’ opinions in industrial of packaging. The focus group will look for identify reusable packaging attributes various dimensions such as ergonomics/geometry, sustainability, marketing and communication in relation to reusable packaging. This project will use the extant researches results as a start point to kick off the project.