2026 Sustainable Packaging Scorecard — Recyclability, Carbon Footprint, and Cost Compared Across Boxes, Mailers, Tape, Void Fill

Source: Packrift catalog as of 2026-04-29 (12,929 active SKUs). EPA WARM v15 carbon ranges. EPR law statuses verified against state legislative trackers, 2026-04-29. If you cite a number from this report, please link back to packrift.com/pages/sustainable-packaging-scorecard.

Executive summary

This is a 2026 sustainability scorecard for the packaging an SMB shipper actually buys: corrugated boxes, mailer boxes, poly mailers, bubble wrap, kraft paper void fill, packing peanuts, carton tape, and stretch film. We scored each format on four sustainability dimensions — curbside-recyclable, biodegradable, compostable, renewable-source — and pulled cost-premium pricing from 12,929 active Packrift SKUs so you can see, for each sustainable swap, how much extra you'd actually pay. Carbon-footprint ranges are pulled from EPA WARM v15 and Sustainable Packaging Coalition published data; we cite ranges, not point estimates, because per-shipment CO2e legitimately varies 2-10x with recycled content, transport distance, and end-of-life routing.

Five takeaways for an SMB shipping 50–500 orders a day:

Curbside-recyclable packaging is available across every category Packrift sells — corrugated boxes, mailer boxes, kraft void fill, water-activated kraft tape, kraft padded mailers — but the per-shipment cost premium for going fully sustainable runs +5% to +280% depending on which format you swap. The biggest premium is the poly-mailer-to-paper-mailer swap; the smallest is the bubble-wrap-to-kraft-paper void-fill swap (which is actually cheaper).
Kraft paper is the most-sustainable substitute for bubble wrap at a 99% lower per-cubic-foot cost. Bubble wrap runs a median $4.05 per cu ft of fill volume in our catalog (n=18); crumpled kraft paper runs $0.047 per cu ft (n=86). The kraft swap is a free lunch for shippers whose SKUs don't need cushioning loft — which is most non-fragile DTC product.
Water-activated kraft tape costs ~79% more than acrylic carton tape per 1,000 yards in our catalog ($123.62 median vs. $69.00 median, n=2 vs n=313). The premium is real, but per-shipment it's still under $0.10 of incremental cost — and kraft tape is the only tape that recycles with the corrugated box, no separation needed. For brands building a "100% curbside-recyclable" claim, kraft tape is non-negotiable.
Starch packing peanuts are actually 17% cheaper than polystyrene EPS peanuts in our catalog ($2.43 vs. $2.93 per cu ft, n=2 each). This contradicts the conventional "+50-80% sustainable premium" rule of thumb that most procurement teams still operate on. EPS peanuts are not a cost-saver in 2026 — they're a recycling liability with no offsetting price advantage.
Paper-based mailers cost ~280% more per unit than LDPE poly mailers in our catalog ($1.11 vs. $0.29 median per unit), and this is where the sustainability premium genuinely bites. The math only pencils out if the brand-lift, customer-LTV uplift, or EPR-fee avoidance compensates. We walk through which customer profiles actually see that ROI in section 11.

The 4 sustainability dimensions — definitions

Sustainability claims for packaging are routinely sloppy. We use four orthogonal dimensions, each with a precise definition tied to a recognized standard:

1. Curbside-recyclable: The material is accepted in the standard residential single-stream recycling bin in ≥60% of U.S. ZIP codes per the How2Recycle / Sustainable Packaging Coalition ZIP-coverage threshold. Paper-based products mostly qualify (corrugated, kraft, chipboard); LDPE film products mostly do not (bubble wrap, poly mailers, air pillows, stretch film) — these require store drop-off.
2. Biodegradable: The material breaks down via biological action (microbial, fungal) within months under composting conditions. Important: "biodegradable" does not imply curbside-compostable. PBAT plastics, starch foams, and uncoated paper qualify; LDPE, polystyrene, and PET do not.
3. Compostable: The material is certified to ASTM D6400 (commercial compost) or ASTM D6868 (paper coatings) and carries either BPI certification or TUV OK Compost. Note that commercial compost facilities are required for most certified-compostable packaging — only ~5% of U.S. households have access. Backyard-compostable is a stricter and rarer standard (TUV OK Compost HOME).
4. Renewable-source: The material is derived from plant fiber (wood, cornstarch, sugarcane, bamboo) rather than petroleum. Recycled-content plastics (PCR LDPE, PCR PET) reduce the petroleum demand but are not technically renewable-source. Kraft paper, mailer boxes, and starch peanuts qualify; LDPE poly, polystyrene, and PET do not.

An honest sustainability claim names which of these four dimensions a product actually satisfies. "Eco-friendly" is not a claim — it's a vibe. "Curbside-recyclable in 94% of U.S. ZIPs per How2Recycle" is a claim. We use the latter throughout this scorecard.

Per-format sustainability scorecard

The 14 most-shipped Packrift packaging formats, scored across the four dimensions. Check (✓) means yes; cross (✗) means no; partial means the format mixes a sustainable and non-sustainable layer that ship together.

Format	Curbside	Biodeg.	Compost.	Renewable	Notes
Kraft paper / corrugated boxes	✓	✓	✓	✓	Top tier. Curbside in ~94% of U.S. ZIPs (How2Recycle).
Mailer boxes (corrugated)	✓	✓	✓	✓	Treat like a small box for recycling. Avoid metallic foil ink, which contaminates mixed paper.
Kraft paper void fill	✓	✓	✓	✓	Recycles with the box if left inside. The cleanest void-fill option on every dimension.
Water-activated kraft tape	✓	✓	✓	✓	Recycles WITH the corrugated box — no separation needed at the MRF.
Carton sealing tape (acrylic / LDPE)	✗	✗	✗	✗	Acceptable WITH corrugated in most MRFs (the tape gets pulped off in the recycling process), but not curbside on its own.
Bubble wrap (LDPE)	✗	✗	✗	✗	Drop-off recycling only. How2Recycle "Store Drop-Off" label applies.
Poly mailers (LDPE)	✗	✗	✗	✗	Drop-off recycling. Some 30-50% PCR variants reduce embodied carbon ~25%.
Bubble mailers (poly outer + bubble lining)	✗	✗	✗	✗	Same constraints as poly + bubble — drop-off only.
Kraft bubble mailers (paper outer + bubble inner)	partial	partial	✗	partial	Paper outer = curbside. Bubble lining = drop-off. Customers must tear apart.
Air pillows (LDPE)	✗	✗	✗	✗	Deflate first, then drop-off film recycling.
Stretch film / pallet covers (LLDPE / LDPE)	✗	✗	✗	✗	Drop-off only. Pallet wrap accepted at most film MRFs.
Polystyrene packing peanuts (EPS)	✗	✗	✗	✗	Hardest to recycle — UPS Store reuse program is the realistic disposal route.
Starch / cornstarch packing peanuts	✗	✓	✓	✓	Dissolves in water. Backyard compost (food-waste safe).
Compostable mailers (PBAT/PLA)	✗	✓	✓	partial	Commercial compost certified (BPI / TUV OK Compost). NOT curbside.

The takeaway from this matrix: paper wins on every dimension, plastic loses on every dimension, and the in-betweens are messy. The kraft-bubble hybrid is curbside only if the customer separates the layers — which most don't. Compostable PBAT mailers solve the biodegradability problem but introduce the commercial-compost-access problem (~5% of U.S. households). The "fully sustainable on all four dimensions" choice for an SMB is a paper-and-corrugated-only stack: corrugated box, kraft mailer for non-fragile, kraft paper void fill, water-activated kraft tape, and starch peanuts where loose-fill is needed.

Cost premium for sustainable substitutes

From the Packrift catalog as of 2026-04-29, the four most common sustainable-vs-conventional swaps and their per-unit cost premiums:

Swap	Conventional (median)	Sustainable (median)	Premium	Sample sizes
Carton tape: acrylic → water-activated kraft	$69.00 / 1,000 yd	$123.62 / 1,000 yd	+79.2%	n=313 vs n=2
Mailer: LDPE poly → paper / kraft / chipboard	$0.292 / unit	$1.111 / unit	+280.8%	n=56 vs n=204
Peanuts: polystyrene EPS → cornstarch	$2.93 / cu ft	$2.43 / cu ft	−17.2% (cheaper)	n=2 vs n=2
Void fill: bubble wrap → crumpled kraft paper	$4.05 / cu ft	$0.047 / cu ft	−98.8% (cheaper)	n=18 vs n=86

The catalog spread within each bucket matters as much as the median. Acrylic carton tape ranges $18.03 to $4,134.83 per 1,000 yd (the high end is specialty tear-resistant or printed variants); kraft tape is $60.22 to $187.03. Poly mailers range $0.044 to $1.77 per unit; sustainable mailers $0.236 to $6.14. Bubble wrap $2.67 to $12.72 per cu ft; kraft paper $0.024 to $0.19. The sustainable swap is rarely the most expensive item in either bucket — it's usually a mid-bucket SKU, with the genuinely-expensive specialty variants on both sides of every comparison.

What this means in practice. The "sustainable packaging is always more expensive" intuition is wrong on two of four swaps in our catalog (peanuts and void fill). It's directionally right on tape (~+80%) and dramatically right on the mailer swap (+280%). A shipper who swaps bubble wrap for kraft paper void fill and EPS peanuts for starch peanuts will see negative cost impact and positive sustainability. The hard trade-off is the mailer category — and that's where 3-4× cost has to be justified by something other than per-shipment-cost economics (brand premium, EPR-fee avoidance, conscious-consumer LTV).

Per-1,000-yard tape pricing in detail

Spec	Min	Median	Max	Offers
Acrylic carton tape (2", standard mil)	$18.03	$69.00	$4,134.83	313
Water-activated kraft tape (2-3", flatback)	$60.22	$123.62	$187.03	2

The kraft-tape sample size is small (Packrift carries 2 SKUs in the natural-white-flatback paper-tape category as of 2026-04-29). For shippers building large-volume kraft-tape consumption, expect the median to compress as the catalog deepens — published industry pricing for water-activated kraft tape sits around $80-110 per 1,000 yd at high volume per Sustainable Packaging Coalition member quotes.

Per-unit mailer pricing in detail

Spec	Min	Median	Max	Offers
LDPE poly mailer (all sizes)	$0.044	$0.292	$1.771	56
Paper-based / kraft / chipboard mailer	$0.236	$1.111	$6.144	204

The cheapest sustainable mailer in the catalog ($0.236, a 6×6 white chipboard stayflats mailer) is roughly the median price of a poly mailer. So the cost-of-entry to paper-based mailers is comparable; what drives the +280% median is the larger and more rigid corrugated-mailer-box SKUs (10×8×4 kraft mailer boxes commonly run $1.50-3.00 per unit in case packs).

Per-shipment carbon footprint

Packaging carbon footprints are routinely quoted with false precision. We cite ranges, derived from EPA WARM v15 (the EPA's Waste Reduction Model, the most-cited U.S. reference for waste-stream carbon accounting), Franklin Associates' 2018 LCA on flexible packaging, and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition's 2024 published material-intensity figures. Where a single number shows up in marketing material, it almost always picks one end of these ranges.

Component	Low (kg CO2e)	High (kg CO2e)	Source
Corrugated box (per box)	0.5	2.0	EPA WARM corrugated containers — 100% PCR vs. virgin kraft
LDPE poly mailer (per unit)	0.05	0.15	Franklin Associates 2018 LCA, LDPE film mailer
Bubble wrap (per package, ~3-5 ft of 3/16" film)	0.20	0.50	EPA WARM LDPE film, normalized to typical pack-out
Kraft tape (per linear inch)	0.001	0.005	Sustainable Packaging Coalition material intensity
Acrylic carton tape (per linear inch)	0.002	0.008	Sustainable Packaging Coalition; LDPE backing dominates
Kraft paper void fill (per cu ft)	0.05	0.20	EPA WARM mixed paper, crumpled-fill normalization
Starch peanuts (per cu ft)	0.10	0.40	Cornstarch peanut LCA, BASF Loosefill 2019 study
EPS polystyrene peanuts (per cu ft)	0.08	0.18	EPA WARM expanded polystyrene foam

One thing that surprises shippers: EPS peanuts have a lower upfront-mass carbon footprint per cu ft than starch peanuts (0.08-0.18 vs. 0.10-0.40 kg CO2e). Polystyrene is mostly air; the embodied energy per filled cubic foot is genuinely modest. The reason EPS still loses on a sustainability scorecard is end-of-life: virtually 100% of EPS peanuts go to landfill, where they persist for ~500 years. Starch peanuts compost in weeks. EPA WARM accounts for end-of-life when computing the total system footprint — and once you include the multi-century landfill liability, EPS comes out worse.

Typical per-shipment carbon (midpoint)

Shipment profile	Carbon (kg CO2e)
Small box + acrylic tape + bubble wrap	1.51
Small box + kraft tape + kraft paper void fill	1.35
Poly mailer (LDPE)	0.10
Compostable mailer (PBAT/PLA hybrid)	0.16

Read these numbers carefully. Box-based shipments are ~10-15× the per-shipment carbon of mailer-based shipments, because the corrugated box itself dominates the footprint. The biggest single carbon-reduction lever for an SMB is not "switch to compostable mailers" — it's "switch from box to mailer where SKU dimensions allow". The kraft-vs-acrylic-tape decision moves the small-box footprint from 1.51 to 1.35 kg CO2e — about a 10% reduction. The box-to-mailer decision moves it from 1.51 to 0.10 kg CO2e — a 93% reduction.

Interactive scorecard tool

Set your packaging mix, choose tape and void fill, and pick a monthly shipment volume. The calculator returns: percentage of your shipments using curbside-recyclable packaging, kg CO2e per shipment (midpoint), monthly carbon footprint, and the cost premium of swapping to a fully sustainable equivalent. Recommended swap order is highest-carbon-impact first.

% boxes
% mailer boxes (kraft)
% poly mailers
Tape
Void fill
Monthly shipments

The "store drop-off" workaround for film

The biggest sustainability obstacle for LDPE-based packaging is that almost no curbside recycling program accepts plastic film. Bubble wrap, poly mailers, air pillows, stretch film, and pallet covers all jam single-stream sorting equipment. They go to landfill if customers throw them in the curbside blue bin.

The workaround that brands use is the How2Recycle "Store Drop-Off" program. Most major U.S. grocery chains (Kroger, Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Publix) accept clean and dry LDPE film at the front-of-store film bin. The bin contents go to specialty film MRFs — Trex, Plastic Film Recycling Network, and others — and become composite decking, drainage pipe, or pellets for new film.

If you ship in poly mailers or bubble wrap, the highest-leverage sustainability move is not to switch packaging — it's to print the How2Recycle Store Drop-Off label on every shipment. The label reads: "Store drop-off — Visit how2recycle.info to find a drop-off near you." It costs nothing per unit (just template work in your shipping software) and shifts a significant share of customer disposal behavior from landfill to film recycling.

How2Recycle membership runs about $1,500-3,000 per year for SMBs depending on revenue tier (SPC member benefit). For a brand shipping 10,000+ poly-mailer orders per year, the per-unit cost of the membership is well under a penny. The label also doubles as a customer-communication tool — many of our wholesale customers report that adding the How2Recycle label was their single highest-feedback packaging change of 2024-2025.

Customer-communication angle: print recycling instructions directly on the mailer or insert. "Drop me at any grocery-store film bin — find one at how2recycle.info" beats a bare LDPE film for both behavior and brand perception. We see SMB DTC brands with this treatment routinely earning sustainability mentions in customer reviews and unboxing videos.

EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) compliance

Six U.S. states have passed packaging EPR laws as of 2026-04-29. Under these laws, brands that sell into the state pay annual fees based on the type and quantity of packaging they put on the market — with higher fees for non-recyclable formats. The fee structures are designed to make sustainable packaging financially advantaged versus LDPE / EPS.

State	Law	Passed	Fees Begin	SMB Threshold	Notes
California	SB 54	2022-06	2027	Producers >$1M annual gross revenue	PRO: California Action Alliance. 65% recycling rate by 2032 mandate.
Oregon	Recycling Modernization Act (SB 582)	2021-08	2025-07	Producers >$5M gross or >1 ton/yr	PRO: Circular Action Alliance. First U.S. state to invoice producers.
Maine	LD 1541	2021-07	2026 (delayed from 2024)	Producers >$2M gross or >15 tons/yr	Stewardship organization rulemaking ongoing as of 2026-Q1.
Colorado	HB22-1355	2022-06	2025-01	Producers >$5M gross revenue	PRO: Circular Action Alliance. Free-recycling model funded by producer fees.
Minnesota	HF 3577	2024-05	2029	Producers >$2M gross revenue	MPCA rulemaking. 75% recycling target by 2032.
Washington	SB 5284 (active 2025 session)	Pending	TBD	TBD	Bill reintroduced 2025; ECY managing PRO selection.

The threshold-by-state matters for SMBs. A brand at $2M annual revenue is already on the hook in Maine and Minnesota, and gets caught in California at $1M. The "we're too small to care about EPR" argument was true in 2022; by 2027 it covers any DTC brand at modest scale. Producer fees in the first states to invoice (Oregon, Colorado) have ranged $0.001 to $0.015 per unit of packaging, with non-recyclable formats at the high end. For a brand shipping 100,000 poly mailers per year into these states, that's $100-1,500 in annual EPR fees — small per-unit, but the per-unit fee for kraft mailers and corrugated boxes is meaningfully lower.

The forward-look: California and Maine fees begin in 2026-2027. By 2028, a DTC brand selling nationally is paying packaging EPR fees in five-to-six states with different reporting cadences and PROs. The compliance burden is becoming a real reason to standardize on curbside-recyclable formats — not because any single state's fee is enormous, but because aggregating fee exposure across states, plus the administrative cost of reporting in each, plus the fee differential favoring curbside-recyclable formats, all push in the same direction.

The "sustainable but expensive" trade-off — when does premium sustainability pay back?

For SMB shippers, the sustainability investment decision usually breaks down into three economic questions:

Brand-lift effect: Do conscious-consumer segments in your category pay more, repeat-buy more, or refer more when packaging is visibly sustainable?
LTV impact: Does sustainable packaging materially affect 12-month customer LTV among your target segments?
EPR-fee avoidance: What's the per-unit fee you avoid by being on curbside-recyclable formats, summed across all your selling states?

Published research (NRF + IBM 2022, McKinsey 2023, First Insight 2023) consistently finds that ~35-45% of consumers self-report being willing to pay 5-10% more for sustainable packaging, but that the gap between stated preference and revealed-preference (actual purchase) is large. The realistic uplift is more like 1-3% on conversion rate among conscious-consumer segments, and 5-15% on second-purchase rate. For DTC brands targeting these segments, that's enough to clear the +280% mailer premium on a per-customer LTV basis.

For commodity SMBs (industrial supplies, generic apparel, replacement parts), the brand-lift effect is roughly zero. Customer reviews don't mention packaging; the mailer goes in the trash without being photographed. The +280% paper-mailer premium does not pay back in these segments, and a brand pursuing it is making a values-based decision rather than an ROI decision. That's legitimate — it's just not financially neutral.

The middle case — and the one that surprises shippers most — is that partial sustainability is often the right answer. A brand can ship in a kraft-paper void fill, with kraft tape on a corrugated box, and still use a poly mailer for the small-format SKUs where mailers are economically dominant. The four sustainability dimensions are not a single binary; they're a portfolio. A "75% curbside-recyclable + 25% drop-off-only" mix is genuinely better than the conventional 0% curbside mix, and it costs roughly the same.

Sustainability marketing claims to AVOID

The FTC's Green Guides set out which packaging claims regulators will treat as deceptive. Greenwashing risk is real — Plant Bottle, Keurig pods, and Naked Juice have all faced FTC consent orders or class-action lawsuits over sustainability claims that didn't pencil. The general rules:

"Eco-friendly" without certification. Banned. The Green Guides require a specific claim ("recyclable in 60% of U.S. ZIPs," "BPI-certified compostable") rather than a vibe word.
"Biodegradable" without composting context. Banned in CA / WA / MN. Biodegradability claims must specify time-frame and conditions — "biodegradable in 180 days under commercial composting conditions" is a claim; "biodegradable" is not.
"Recyclable" without "where" instructions. The Green Guides require disclosure of where the material is actually recyclable. LDPE poly mailers are recyclable at store drop-off — labelling them "recyclable" without that qualifier is FTC-deceptive.
"Made from renewable materials" without disclosure of share. A 30%-PCR mailer is partially renewable; calling it "made from renewable materials" without the percent is deceptive.
"Carbon-neutral" without methodology. Carbon-neutrality claims now require third-party verification under California AB 1305 (effective 2024) and similar bills in WA / NY. "Net-zero packaging" without a published methodology and a verified offset registry is regulatory exposure.

The cleanest sustainability copy says: "Curbside-recyclable in 94% of U.S. ZIPs (How2Recycle)" with the corresponding How2Recycle label printed on the package. It's specific, verifiable, and FTC-compliant. The vague-virtue copy ("plastic-free," "eco-friendly," "kind to the planet") is exactly what generates lawsuits and regulator letters.

Five customer profiles — when sustainability investment pays back

Five archetypes from our wholesale customer base where the +280% paper-mailer premium and +79% kraft-tape premium genuinely pencil out, and one where it doesn't:

1. DTC clean beauty: Average AOV $35-80. Conscious-consumer segment 60-70% of volume. Unboxing videos common. Sustainable packaging is on-brand and routinely mentioned in 5-star reviews. Verdict: invest fully. Kraft mailer, kraft void fill, kraft tape, no LDPE anywhere.
2. Subscription food / snack box: AOV $25-50, recurring monthly. Customers have direct line-of-sight to packaging every month. Compostable inserts and curbside-recyclable mailer boxes pay back through retention. Verdict: invest in primary mailer + void fill. Tape can stay acrylic if the box recycles fine without it (most MRFs pulp tape off).
3. B2B office / industrial supplies: AOV $75-300, repeat purchasing pattern. Customer is procurement, not retail consumer. Brand-lift effect minimal. EPR-fee exposure rising for any SKU above 1 ton/year of packaging. Verdict: optimize for compliance, not premium. Curbside-recyclable formats where they're cost-neutral or cheaper (kraft void fill, starch peanuts), keep poly mailers for small-parts shipments.
4. Conscious-apparel DTC: AOV $40-120. Sustainability is part of the brand promise. Customers will read packaging copy. Verdict: invest fully + market it. The packaging is not a cost center; it's a brand-asset that drives the next purchase. Earned media (Instagram, TikTok) routinely surfaces unboxing content.
5. Etsy artisan / handmade goods: AOV $15-60. Etsy buyer demographic skews high on sustainability preference (Etsy's own 2023 buyer survey: 73% of shoppers say sustainable packaging affects repeat-purchase). Small batches make per-unit cost more visible to sellers. Verdict: kraft + chipboard mailers, kraft tape. The Etsy customer reads the packaging.
6. Commodity ecom (replacement parts, generic homewares) — counter-example: AOV $8-25, price-sensitive, commodity competition. Customer reviews never mention packaging. Brand-lift effect zero. Verdict: do not invest in premium sustainable packaging. Use the cheapest LDPE mailer that ships safely, print the How2Recycle Store Drop-Off label, and move on. The +280% mailer premium does not return on this customer.

Methodology appendix

Catalog inputs. Per-unit pricing is from the Packrift active SKU catalog as of 2026-04-29 (12,929 SKUs across 25 product categories). We parsed product titles for case quantity, dimensions, and material composition using regex extraction. Where a SKU couldn't be reliably classified into one of our four sustainability buckets, we excluded it. Per-cu-ft conversions follow industry rules of thumb stamped in the analysis script: kraft paper crumples at ~0.5 cu ft of fill volume per square foot of paper; bubble wrap loose-fill volume = sqft × thickness; peanuts as labeled; tape on a per-1,000-yard basis to normalize across roll lengths.

Scorecard methodology. Each format was scored against the four dimensions using published certifications and How2Recycle category guidance. "Curbside" is binary — either ≥60% U.S. ZIP coverage in How2Recycle's database or it isn't. "Biodegradable" follows ASTM D6691 / D5511 lab criteria. "Compostable" requires BPI or TUV OK Compost certification. "Renewable-source" requires plant-fiber origin. Where a format has hybrid construction (kraft bubble mailers), we flagged the dimension as "partial."

Carbon ranges. Per-unit kg CO2e ranges are from EPA WARM v15 (Waste Reduction Model, U.S. EPA 2020), Franklin Associates 2018 LCA on flexible packaging, and Sustainable Packaging Coalition 2024 published material-intensity figures. We use ranges rather than point estimates because per-unit footprints legitimately vary 2-10× depending on recycled content, transport distance, and end-of-life pathway. Where we cite midpoint per-shipment numbers in this report, those midpoints assume average U.S. recycling rates (33% for corrugated, ~6% for LDPE film, ~0% for EPS peanuts) and average transport distances (500 mi for paper, 1,200 mi for plastic film).

EPR data. State EPR statuses verified against state legislative tracker, NCSL packaging-EPR clearinghouse, and individual state DEQ / CalRecycle / MPCA web pages as of 2026-04-29. Fees-begin dates reflect the most recently published producer-pay schedule; some states have delayed previously announced dates (Maine notably moved fees from 2024 to 2026). PRO assignments reflect 2025-Q1 PRO designations by each state.

What this report is not. It's not a complete LCA — we don't compute Scope 3 transport, refrigerated-shipping emissions, or in-warehouse handling. It's not a vendor comparison — we benchmark Packrift against Packrift, not against Uline, ULINE Climate Pledge, or PackageOne. It's not a damage-rate study, and we do not claim that switching to kraft void fill leaves damage rates unchanged in every category — there are SKUs that genuinely require LDPE bubble cushioning, and the right answer for those is to keep the bubble and run the How2Recycle Store Drop-Off label rather than force a kraft swap.

Citation request. If you cite a number from this report — in a blog post, newsletter, podcast, deck — please link back to packrift.com/pages/sustainable-packaging-scorecard. We update the underlying numbers quarterly as the catalog refreshes, and a back-link helps us notify you when the numbers move.

Republish license. CC BY 4.0 — quote, screenshot, or adapt anything in this report with credit and a back-link.