We used to send our orders out in the buff - devoid of plastic wrapping and protected in the post by just a stiff cardboard envelope. And that worked just fine. Except when it didn't.

Occasionally, the parcel got wet along the way. Usually just a little wet, but on one occasion it appeared to have been submerged in a puddle for hours. The address label fell off and the envelope disintegrated. And our customer was disappointed and, understandably, annoyed.

At that point, we reluctantly accepted that some kind of extra covering was needed.

We started to look for eco-friendly alternatives to plastic wrapping...and opened a can of more worms than you'd find in the most thriving compost heap.

In these Attenborough-informed times, the average person is very aware of the impact of single-use plastic packaging and the need to reduce it. A whole range of greener options has sprung up to fill this need. Biodegradable plastics, bioplastics, biofilms - call them what you will, there's a whole raft of alternatives out there now. Good news for the eco-conscious consumer, surely?

Unfortunately, our household waste recycling schemes haven't caught up yet:

   >     Most biodegradable plastics aren't certified for home composting (or take a looooonnnng time to break down if they are, as they're really designed for industrial composting conditions).

   >     Few councils accept bioplastics in their garden and food waste collections (which are bound for industrial composting so would be ideal in theory).

So ultimately, most of these biofilms will end up in landfill despite our best efforts. Yes, they'll probably break down eventually but it's far from a zero impact, minimal footprint utopia.

If they end up in the sea or littering the countryside, they're little better than their plastic counterparts. It seems bioplastics may not be all they're cracked up to be.

It's also hard to ascertain exactly how environmentally friendly they actually are as their green credentials don't always stand up to scrutiny:

   >     Cellophane is made with toxic carbon disulphide and can release methane if lodged in a landfill that lacks a suitable recovery system.

   >     Glassene may be popular in the US but isn't recyclable in the UK.

   >     Biodegradable plastics are usually made using corn and other sugar starches which could arguably be better used for food crops. At the time of writing (Feb 2020) there is a worldwide shortage of the raw crop needed to make bioplastics. Most will break down completely under the right conditions but not in the sea, so they still pose a potential danger to marine life.

   >     Alternatives such as stone paper are far heavier than plastic which increases the weight of packed items, with a knock-on effect on delivery vehicle emissions.

So if the eco-alternatives aren't necessarily greener than green, is the standard packaging really as bad as we assume?

Polypropylene is the most common material for the cello bags used for wrapping cards and the like. It has a lot going for it - strong, cheap, light, water resistant and not prone to creasing.

It's even recyclable and offers more flexibility at end-of-life than other plastic films. Sounds perfect!

Sadly, household recycling schemes are currently unable to deal with it, so it ends up going to landfill or for incineration. Manufacturers send their scrap materials for industrial recycling, but this isn't an option for most end users in the UK.

Not only are most of these alternatives less perfect than it might appear, they're just not as good at protecting products as the standard plastic cello bags.

They're also more expensive. MUCH more expensive in some cases. Biodegradable bags often cost four times as much as the equivalent plastic packaging. That's a high price to pay for something that may not really be much better.

Seems Kermit was right! After wading through all the conflicting information, we still had no idea what was the best option overall.

The more we looked into it, the more we felt like there was no right answer.

Then we stumbled across the WRAP website and finally found an approach that made sense to us.

WRAP is an organisation that aims to deliver practical solutions to improve resource efficiency. Their vision is a world in which resources are used sustainably. They say:

The UK Plastics Pact (led by WRAP) is a trailblazing, collaborative initiative that will create a circular economy for plastics. It brings together businesses from across the entire plastics value chain with UK governments and NGOs to tackle the scourge of plastic waste.

WRAP also provides an excellent interactive guide to help choose appropriate packaging.

For non-food products, the WRAP recommendation is "For film – aim to use mono‑material PE and PP films. Industry is working towards widespread collection of these for recycling."

Compostable plastics are not recommended except for food products and packaging. Even then, it is noted that "currently there is no ideal recycling or composting route that is accessible to all UK consumers for these types of packaging".

This seems sensible. Composting may sound wholesome but bioplastics don't actually enhance the soil as organic waste does. It's still just the disposal step at the end of a linear economy.

Letting our rubbish rot only really makes sense for waste that can't be recycled due to its nature (e.g. food) or contamination (e.g. food packaging).

Based on the WRAP recommendations, we have chosen to use polypropylene cello bags for now. We review the options every time we need to replenish our packaging.

It's far better at protecting our products in the post than any of the current alternatives, and kerbside recycling should become widely available in the next few years.

To make our plastic packaging as sustainable as possible, we:

   >     Choose the thinnest film available that provides enough protection and is suitable for reuse

   >     Encourage people to reuse our wrappers then recycle them if local facilities are available (there are a few ideas for reusing them here)

   >     Accept the used wrappers back so we can either use them again for packaging (if in a suitable condition) or send them for recycling ourselves

Rather than spending more on alternative packaging, we decided to start our own little closed loop system and pay for our returned packaging to be recycled via TerraCycle.

It seems virtually impossible for a small business to source genuinely eco-friendly waterproof packaging at the moment. The situation is a lot more complex that it first appears and in some ways the "sustainable" options just add to the confusion and give a false sense of virtue.