As we work to bring healthy organic food to people around the country, we struggle to minimize our environmental impact at the same time. Earthbound Farm relies on different types of packaging to bring our fresh organic produce from our fields to your home, while protecting its quality and maximizing its freshness. And because of the size of our business, we use significant amounts of packaging material.

It’s hard to imagine trying to function without packaging on any scale. Even at our small Farm Stand in Carmel Valley, California, where we sell produce grown literally steps away, we need packaging to protect the produce and keep it from going bad too quickly. For example, if we didn’t put our heirloom raspberries (so delicate that we only sell them locally) in little plastic containers, they’d disintegrate before anyone could get them home. Packaging plays an important role in protecting delicate products and preventing food waste, but it also uses a lot of resources. The challenge, then, lies in finding better packaging.

At home I’m diligent about reusing plastic bags, carrying reusable shopping bags, drinking water from reusable bottles as often as I can, and storing food in lidded glass containers to avoid wraps and foil — yet my family still manages to fill 2 or 3 recycling bins a week with yogurt containers, beverage bottles, Earthbound Farm salad containers, and other packaging. I hate it!

At Earthbound Farm, we’re just as committed to reducing waste. After the cost of the produce itself, packaging represents our biggest cost — so we have a clear business incentive to reduce packaging as much as possible, and we aggressively seek more ecological alternatives for whatever remains.

We’ve just realized a longtime goal by switching to 100% post-consumer recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PCR PET) plastic for all our clamshell salad packages. Post-consumer recycled PET is made from plastic products, like soda or water bottles, that were used and then recycled. It requires significantly less energy and water to produce, generates far fewer greenhouse gases than virgin plastic, and keeps usable materials out of the landfill. Annually, compared to using virgin plastic, our switch to PCR PET for our clamshell salad packages will:

• Save 424,224 million BTUs (MMBTUs) of energy
• Avoid 16,191 tons of carbon dioxide emissions
• Save 68,307 gallons of water
• Keep 1,308,623 pounds of solid waste out of the landfill

Last year we switched to cartons made from 99% post-consumer/1% post-industrial recycled corrugate. We use 224 million square feet of corrugate every year in our shipping cartons; compared to the 50% recycled corrugate we used before, annually this switch conserves:

• 106,594 trees
• 2,382,603 gallons of oil
• 18,811 cubic yards of landfill space
• 25,081,030 kilowatts of energy
• 43,891,803 gallons of water

Switching to post-consumer recycled materials has turned out to be economically beneficial, too, which is key to making PCR a viable option for businesses. Most important, we’re helping to create market demand for PCR materials. As demand grows, the incentive to build recycling capacity for those materials grows, too. And as capacity and supply increase, PCR materials become more affordable for more companies.

Reducing waste is something both individuals and companies can do to protect our environment. In addition to developing better packaging, we’re working on several fronts — from conservation initiatives in our facilities to alternative energy sources like biodiesel in our equipment — to make every part of Earthbound Farm as sustainable as our organic produce itself.

Myra Goodman and her husband, Drew, were a couple of “city kids” from Manhattan when they founded Earthbound Farm in 1984; they believed that growing crops organically in their 2.5-acre garden, in harmony with nature, would yield the healthiest, most delicious food possible. From its humble beginnings, Earthbound Farm has grown to provide certified organic produce to millions of people every day.