Samsung has been committed to reducing its plastic footprint ever since announcing the Samsung Environmental Declaration in 1992. The company has implemented a variety of environmentally responsible policies to raise awareness of plastic’s impact on the environment. The most recent of them is the sustainability policy which it announced earlier this year. Samsung plans to first limit, and ultimately replace plastic packaging from all its products.
The policy is already in force starting with the Galaxy S10 series. The Galaxy S10’s packaging uses eco-friendly materials instead of plastics and vinyl. Samsung has also redesigned the box and its interiors to use as fewer resources as possible. In a new video, the company has explained and how its “sustainability efforts are putting the planet first,” while detailing the impact of plastic on the environment.
Planet First – Samsung's green initiative
Single-use plastic did make our lives easier. It was cheap to manufacture and thus quickly became commonplace. However, plastic takes over 500 years to biodegrade. This essentially means not a single piece of plastic has degraded naturally yet. Furthermore, most of the plastic waste (nearly 86%) is not recycled.
Between 1950 to 2015, an estimated 8.3 billion tons of plastic was produced. This means that even the first piece of plastic ever produced can still be found somewhere. While several organizations, as well as individuals, have now started taking precautionary measures, work still needs to be done. And Samsung is doing its bit.
Samsung is recycling plastic by collecting waste electronic equipment and using the recycled plastic in new products. The company estimates to collect 3.8 million tons of waste products by 2020. Also, 90% of its products comply with the standards for green product mark, effectively reducing greenhouse gas emission by 250 million tons during the period between 2009-2020.
Samsung is now expanding its green initiative by removing plastic packaging from its mobile products as well as larger appliances. The company vows to only use sustainably sourced paper in its packaging and manuals by 2020. This is going to be a gradual transition, but Samsung is really putting the planet first.
