News Sony to eliminate plastic packaging

[thomas]

Sony said it would eliminate plastic in its packaging in 2023 as companies worldwide shift to sustainable materials. The company will begin with smaller products weighing 1 kilogram or less, such as smartphones, cameras and audio accessories, covering an estimated 40 per cent of the products Sony shipped in 2021.

Photo credit: Keiichi Furukawa​

Sony becomes the first major Japanese electronics company to move toward eliminating plastic in packaging. Larger products like televisions will have plastic eliminated from their packaging at an unspecified point in the future. Sony will procure paper boxes from external sources and develop new packaging materials in-house from sources like bamboo and sugarcane fibre. While TV packaging will continue to rely on polystyrene foam for the foreseeable future, Sony will look to adopt new technology that creates foam from powdered recycled paper.

Paywall alert:

Sony to eliminate plastic packaging, starting with phones and earbuds

Exclusive: Electronics group eyes shift to paper and bamboo materials

asia.nikkei.com

 

[Petaris]

That seems like it will be a fairly easy switch to make. What I want to see is how the Japanese snack companies move away from using plastic!

 

[Grandpa Frank]

I always wonder why I see so little about pollution in China , Russia and India. It seems until they(the big 3) all make major changes , anything else the world does is just peeing on a giant fire and hurting their economy a bit. Maybe my problem is that I get all my info on Facebook and skip TV news?

 

[Lothor]

I always wonder why I see so little about pollution in China , Russia and India. It seems until they(the big 3) all make major changes , anything else the world does is just peeing on a giant fire and hurting their economy a bit. Maybe my problem is that I get all my info on Facebook and skip TV news?

I'd hazard a guess that you don't hear much about China, Russia and India because their media mainly do not operate in English!

A point about each country:

Russia has less than half the population of the US and a much lower standard of living, which makes the country's environmental impact a small fraction of that of the US.
China is doing a lot of research into reducing environmental impact with the full support of the state. I know this because I proofread many of the papers.
India is probably making a large contribution to environmental problems because of its enormous population. However, the impact per person has historically been low.

So things are complicated!

I find these "What about China and India?" arguments rather reductionist. Would you not vote "because of all those other people in Maine"? We all have to do what we can to reduce our environmental impact.