Google Makes Paper Packaging Work: Packaging World

How did Google reach its plastic-free packaging goal a year early, and what did the constraint teach them along the way?

Senior Editor Anne Marie Mohan talks with Joey Giacomini, packaging design engineer lead at Google, about the company's push to eliminate plastic from its hardware packaging. He explains how tackling the final holdouts—hang tabs, shrink wrap, plastic tape—led to a stronger, lighter fiber material and a more natural design aesthetic, and why Google chose to make its findings public in a downloadable design guide.

Read the full featured article on Packaging World.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Through the Line, a podcast exploring innovations and information across the packaging and processing landscape. From topics impacting consumer packaged goods and healthcare packaging to the latest technologies in food processing operations.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hi, I'm Anne-Marie Mohan. I'm senior editor with Packaging World. And I'm here with Joey Giacomini. He is the packaging design engineer lead at Google. And Joey just spoke on a panel about paperization, which is a huge topic and generating a lot of interest and enthusiasm right now. So he's going, he's joining us to tell us a little more about some of the points he raised during the panel discussion. And first of all, I think what's amazing is that in 2020, Google announced that it wanted to go plastic-free with its hardware packaging by 2025. And you just told me that you were able to do that by 2024.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yes. Yeah. First off, thank you, Anne, for having me. And it's great to be here and talk about some fun stuff like packaging. I think so. When I spoke about it, we didn't start off from all plastic, of course. But when we kicked this initiative off, we were already at 94% fiber-based packaging. Okay. And the challenge has really been that last 6%. Where a lot of that has resided in things like protective things or even just industry commodities. So you look at like a hang tab, for example, those are traditionally plastic. If you look at some protective measures, that would be your shrink wrap, maybe protective product labels, device wraps, and even plastic tape in the corners of these rigid boxes. So it was really going line item by line item and trying to see if we can find solutions for each of those places we were using plastic. 6% doesn't seem like a lot. It was quite challenging, but I think we were fortunate to start off in a good spot. And I think that allowed us to actually reach our goal a year early, which we're really proud of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Okay. And I guess I'd like to step back just for a minute. Why plastic free? I think probably some people at the conference could argue that plastic isn't such a bad thing. Why was it important for Google to make that transition away from plastic?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, and I I think you make a good point. Plastic is ubiquitous in the industry. I don't think we're here saying plastic is even inherently not a sustainable material. I think what we're trying to avoid is mixing materials. Okay. Because it gets really confusing for the end user. So if you think of traditionally in a rigid box construction like this, it would typically have what a PP lamination on it and a shrink wrap, and there's all these films that don't work very well in the recycling streams. So the way we looked at it is we don't have a huge need for a barrier like food industry or even pharmaceuticals. So for us, getting rid of plastic, getting to a more fiber-based solution really simplifies things to a single stream for our for our end user. And again, nodding to using a more natural uncoated material, I think removes a little bit of this hesitation of is this recyclable in the first place?

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And we talked about, or you talked about in your panel presentation, and this is something I found really interesting, is that when people think about a consumer electronics product, they've got in mind this white perceived package that's been the norm. But you wanted to step away from that in some ways to showcase your sustainability, but also because you didn't want that polycoded paper. And you were just saying that these constraints that Google you put on yourself to be plastic free was a constraint. And yet it led to some really interesting innovation. Could you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, absolutely. I think I spoke about the industry. When you think about what is premium, often folks will think about white pristine box, white pristine molded fiber tray. That's been the norm. And we felt like having this more natural look and feel not only helps guide you to, hey, this is a sustainable material, this is a recyclable material, but something about the imperfections and our speckled mold-fiber tray with the recycled newspaper in it, this Kylie top sheet. We really like the look and feel. And then getting to what you asked about, did we find some advantages by, in essence, working through these plastic-free constraints? And the answer is yes. So this Kylie paper, I think, is like our super paper, our superpower. We found it to be stronger than what we used historically and even 70% more stretchable in the machine direction. So what we've noticed now after using this and testing it is we're able to actually use a lighter gram weight. So if historically we've used a 200 gram sun paper, for example, we've been able to actually get 160 gram Kylie paper to work for us. So that kind of takes the whole system, reduces some weight, and then again gives us that nice look and feel. Another kind of constraint that I actually just thought of now is historically we use plastic tape in the corners of these rigid boxes, which would make it a little bit challenging to break it down. Now we've transitioned to uh we we use a paper tape, it's a billarude paper tape, a BK paper tape, which is 120 GSM. It's actually quite easy to snap the corner and lock knock it down flat. So then if an end user does want to like flatten KDF everything to fit into the recycling, it's it's an easier process. So it's things we've found along the way of pursuing sustainability that's made us better as a whole. So it's been fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

And all that RD and all that effort, you then put in a guide, a design guide, the plastic-free packaging design guide, which is available and downloadable for other brands or for anyone, basically.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

And I would suspect a lot of companies would say that's our proprietary information.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Why did Google decide to share that?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, I think what when we've thought about sustainability, something that's resonated with us is it's not a competition. It's really meant to be collaborative. And I think we've seen this at this conference today and speaking with the other panel members is it's meant to be collaborative. Rising tide lifts all boats, all ships. We wanted to see if we could guide the industry and I think what we believe to be the right direction, give folks the tools, be transparent. We really were glad that we could get leadership behind this. And I think it makes us all better. It's better for the planet. And with we're not saying we're necessarily the expert of the industry. There's a ton of experts here, but I think we can give our story and make everyone better for it. And we've seen some other guides come out recently. I think I alluded to Microsoft's accessibility guide, which has been really interesting to learn from and look at. I'm looking forward to more collaboration across the industry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Yes, thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Thank you for listening to Through the Line Packaging and Processing. You can listen to more episodes on all streaming platforms. Be sure to visit us at packworld.com, profoodworld.com, and healthcarepackaging.com for more packaging and processing news. This podcast was edited by Brady Guns.