Millo: Luxury and Sustainability combined

What experts have to say about this project:

Sustainability Results:

  • 75% of packaging is made from recycled materials
  • All packaging parts can be easily sorted and recycled
  • No plastic lamination is used
  • No glued textiles or other unnecessary materials used

Financial benefits:

Even though this is a luxury packaging category and quality and product protection comes before cost, we managed to achieve a small cost reduction. It was achieved by simply using fewer materials and manufacturing operations, focusing on simplification and minimalism.

Partners:

Project: Millo – Luxury and Sustainability combined
Client: Millo appliances
Design solution: Džiugas Valančauskas
Scientific consultant: Rasa Tumaševičiutė

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Briefly

Millo Appliances is a foodtech company which develops innovative solutions for simple and enjoyable food preparation. The company’s first foodtech gadget is the Millo blender. Re-imagining the traditional blender from the base up, the millo blender combines cutting edge technology, minimalist design and materials of the highest quality. This brand is all about healthy living. And that doesn’t end with diet. Sustainability is a huge concern for the health of our planet. That is why when it came to designing our packaging we spared nothing in making sure that the main materials used were as much as possible recycled and derived from sustainable sources. The best thing is that packaging is recyclable and includes a consumer educating recycling scheme leaflet inside, where the most common questions about recycling are answered. The result, packaging that meets our high environmental standards without compromising on style.

Context / Problem

Millo already had a prototype for their packaging which unfortunately included many unsustainable aspects (such as plastic lamination, glued textile ribbon, styrofoam inserts) and we knew that all of it needs to be changed. Most luxury consumer electronics come in heavy boxes made from laminated layers of cardboard, and containing many different materials. They are pretty much impossible to properly sort for consumers and for recycling centres to actually recycle them.

Opportunity

The Millo blender is the blender of the future. And what does a future blender need? Future packaging. The question was, what should that packaging look like? This was our departure point when we began working with the Millo team. We created a vision for packaging redesign: completely recyclable packaging made from renewable resources and recycled material which would not be a headache for the customer to sort. And this vision dovetailed beautifully into Millo’s mission to provide food tech solutions that encourage sustainability and healthy living.

Solutions

Glued plastic elimination: Heavy consumer electronics usually come covered in rigid packaging which is laminated in plastic. They are ending up in incineration or landfill as the plastic glued to the paper makes the entire package difficult to recycle. This thin, sometimes even unnoticeable, layer is used to protect heavy packaging corners from becoming torn- something considered unacceptable by luxury packaging standards. After testing a number of sustainably made materials that had robust tearing and bending resistance properties, we settled on paper based ‘Wibalin Buckram’. REACH EU standard compliant, it is free from substances harmful to the environment or the end-consumer and fully recyclable and utilises raw materials from responsibly managed forests.

 

 

Print: And when it came to printing, we decided to use as little ink as possible. After all, why overdo the text when the packaging was looking to reflect the blender’s minimalist beauty.

 

 

Inner base: Wibalin Buckram is the outer decorative packaging material that binds the overall structure. For the inside we turned to ESKA, a rigid board material made by a Dutch company that’s 100% made from recycled paper. Rigid, sustainable and protective, it couldn’t be better.

 

 

Additional protection: We were able to abandon laminated plastic in favour of paper-based alternatives for much of the packaging, but we were still dependent on its small use in some parts. The cube of the outer packaging was covered with a thermoplastic film as we could not take risks when it came to protecting such an expensive item from moisture and other factors during shipment. And for single item D2C e-commerce, we added soft foam corners inside the secondary packaging for product impact protection. For both applications low-density polyethylene (LDPE) was selected, which is the easiest form of plastic to recycle in most parts of the world (including Lithuania). These materials are not glued to the packaging in any way, so they can be easily removed and sorted as plastic.

 

From textile to paper: The previous version of the packaging contained a glued textile ribbon. Although the ribbon looked luxurious, the problem was that it would prove a nightmare to remove when it came to sorting waste for recycling. And even if the packaging did make it to recycling, the whole packaging would just be discarded. To overcome this issue, we sought out paper alternatives and we ended up with the same Wibalin Buckram we had used for the outer packaging (but this time used multi-layered for thickness) which makes recycling of this box very easy. As well, because it utilises the same material as the outer box, it simplifies logistics and project management.

Inner forms: The most important function of inner packaging is that it keeps the product in place and stationary so that it reaches the customer safely without damage. To achieve this, most other products use moulded plastic forms or styrofoam which was used in the previous packaging. Working together with structural designers and manufacturers, we were able to create inner forms from black corrugated cardboard. Lightweight and attractive, it holds the product securely. Moreover, it is fully recyclable.

Customer Education

It’s a common assumption when you receive a luxury item that the packaging is not recyclable because it’s usually heavy, complex and made from many glued layers. But our box is different so our job was to make sure that the customer didn’t bring wrong assumptions to our packaging. We wanted them to not only know that the packaging was fully recyclable, but also give them clear indications of which recyclable bin each part should be put in. To this end, we created a leaflet that briefly outlined what materials had been used and answered the kinds of questions customers commonly have when it comes to packaging in an understandable, customer-friendly way!