Michael Stoick
2/04/2026 2:55 PM
Plastic packaging didn’t dominate because consumers demanded it; it won because it solves a bunch of problems for producers and retailers cheaply and efficiently, but it causes a bunch more.
A few big drivers:
1. Cost and convenience
Plastic is lightweight, cheap, durable, and fast to manufacture. It reduces shipping weight, breakage, and product loss. From a supply-chain perspective, it’s almost unbeatable.
Plastic is lightweight, cheap, durable, and fast to manufacture. It reduces shipping weight, breakage, and product loss. From a supply-chain perspective, it’s almost unbeatable.
2. Shelf life and liability
Plastic extends shelf life and protects against contamination. That lowers spoilage rates and legal risk. If food lasts longer and looks “untouched,” it’s safer for the company, even if the environmental cost is externalized.
Plastic extends shelf life and protects against contamination. That lowers spoilage rates and legal risk. If food lasts longer and looks “untouched,” it’s safer for the company, even if the environmental cost is externalized.
3. Standardization at scale
Plastic allows products to move smoothly through highly standardized global systems—automated packing lines, warehouses, trucks, and stores. Reuse and refill systems don’t fit neatly into that model (yet).
Plastic allows products to move smoothly through highly standardized global systems—automated packing lines, warehouses, trucks, and stores. Reuse and refill systems don’t fit neatly into that model (yet).
4. Marketing and branding
Plastic is a billboard. It can be shaped, colored, printed, and sealed to signal freshness, convenience, and “newness.” A lot of packaging exists to sell the product, not protect it.
Plastic is a billboard. It can be shaped, colored, printed, and sealed to signal freshness, convenience, and “newness.” A lot of packaging exists to sell the product, not protect it.
5. Labor substitution
Single-use packaging replaces human labor. Refilling, washing, sorting, and maintaining reusable systems requires people. Plastic is a way to avoid those ongoing labor costs.
Single-use packaging replaces human labor. Refilling, washing, sorting, and maintaining reusable systems requires people. Plastic is a way to avoid those ongoing labor costs.
So who is plastic packaging really serving?
Mostly the producer and retailer.
It serves:
- Manufacturers by lowering production and liability costs
- Distributors by reducing shipping weight and damage
- Retailers by extending shelf life and reducing shrink
- Brands by enabling marketing and control over the product experience
Consumers get convenience, but that’s a secondary benefit, not the primary design goal.
And then there’s the invisible party…
Hazardous chemicals are inherently part of the plastic and it leeches into food, our bodies, and the envionment.
Plastic packaging also relies on external costs being pushed onto:
- Municipal recycling and waste systems
- Taxpayers
- Communities near landfills and incinerators
- Future generations
- Ecosystems and public health
From that lens, plastic packaging works because the true costs are not paid by the people making decisions to use it.
The quiet truth
If plastic packaging were required to:
- Be fully recovered,
- Be reused at scale,
- Or include its environmental and health costs in the price,
…it would lose a lot of its competitive advantage very quickly.
That’s why reuse, refill, and waste prevention often struggle—not because they don’t work, but because they compete against a system that has spent decades optimizing for disposability.