Introducing Suntribe's New Sustainable Packaging Made From Recycled Plastic
Packaging is tricky.
As much as we’d all love a perfect zero-impact solution, the reality is that every packaging material comes with trade-offs. Glass is heavy to transport, paper often needs coatings, and plastic — even the bio-based kind — is still plastic.
That’s why we believe sustainable packaging isn’t about finding one magical material. It’s about continuously improving, reducing unnecessary waste and making smarter choices over time.
From sugar cane plastic to recycled plastic
For many years, we used tubes made from sugar cane PE instead of conventional fossil-based plastic.
Sugar cane plastic was an important step forward because it’s made from a renewable raw material instead of petroleum. Since sugar cane absorbs CO2 while growing, it also has a lower climate impact during production compared to virgin fossil plastic.
But sugar cane plastic also comes with some important limitations.
Even though the raw material is plant-based, the final material behaves almost exactly like conventional plastic. It isn’t biodegradable or compostable, and if it ends up in nature, it can still contribute to plastic pollution just like regular plastic.
Another challenge is that bio-based plastic still requires producing new plastic material. While the source is renewable, it doesn’t reduce the overall amount of plastic being put into circulation.
There are also broader environmental considerations connected to large-scale agriculture, such as land use, transport and resource consumption. While sugar cane plastic can absolutely be part of a better system, we no longer see it as the most long-term resource-efficient solution on its own.
That’s where PCR comes in.
What is PCR plastic?
Over time, we’ve realised that using existing plastic again and again is an even more important part of the solution.
That’s why we’re now gradually moving towards PCR packaging.
PCR stands for Post-Consumer Recycled plastic.
In simple terms: plastic that has already been used, recycled and turned into new packaging instead of becoming waste.
Rather than creating new plastic material — whether fossil-based or bio-based — PCR gives existing plastic another life. This helps reduce the need for virgin plastic production and supports a more circular system where materials stay in use for longer.
A few years ago, “recycled plastic” was unfortunately often more of a marketing buzzword than a meaningful solution, since many packaging options only contained very small amounts of recycled material. But the technology and availability have improved rapidly in recent years, and it’s now possible to source packaging with significantly higher recycled content while still maintaining functionality and durability.
For example, our updated lip balm packaging is made from 95% recycled plastic.
PCR packaging will become the new standard
It’s not a perfect solution (nothing really is), but recycling and reusing existing materials is currently one of the best ways to reduce packaging waste at scale.
Packaging is a huge part of the problem. According to the EU, around 40% of all plastics and 50% of all paper used in the European Union is used for packaging alone — and packaging accounts for roughly 36% of all municipal solid waste. In other words: even small improvements in packaging can have a surprisingly big impact when scaled across entire industries.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that this is the direction the entire industry is moving towards. New EU packaging regulations (PPWR) will require significantly higher amounts of recycled content in plastic packaging over the coming years, with mandatory targets for 2030 and even higher targets for 2040.
Depending on the type of packaging, the required recycled content levels will range from around 10–35% by 2030 and increase further towards 25–65% by 2040.
The same regulations will also require all packaging on the EU market to be recyclable by 2030 and push companies to reduce unnecessary packaging overall.
In other words: what still feels ambitious today will soon become the industry standard. And spoiler alert — our updated packaging already fulfils the recycled content requirements that many types of packaging in the EU will only be required to meet by 2040.
Less packaging matters too
Sustainable packaging isn’t only about what material you use — it’s also about how much material you use in the first place.
That’s why our updated tubes use thinner walls: 0.4 mm instead of 0.5 mm. Same functionality, less material.
We’re also switching to slim top caps, which further reduce plastic usage while making the tubes lighter and easier to use. In total, the new Suntribe PCR tubes save 20% plastic compared to the previous tubes.
And yes — this is also why we avoid extra paper boxes unless absolutely necessary. Fancy outer packaging might look nice on a shelf, but it often becomes waste within seconds.
Our packaging updates
Starting in May 2026, the following products will transition from sugar cane tubes with regular flip-top caps to light-weight PCR packaging with slim top caps:
- Baby & Kids Organic Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30
- Active Organic Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50
- Organic Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30
- Organic Mineral UV Shield SPF 50
In 2027, the following product will follow:
The new tubes are designed to reduce both the amount of new plastic used and the total amount of packaging material overall.
The tube body itself is made from 55% recycled plastic, while the tube head is made from 100% recycled plastic. Altogether, the full tube (without the cap) consists of 65% recycled material.
Since caps currently require specific material properties for durability and functionality, the slim top cap still uses virgin plastic for now. Including the cap, the complete packaging contains 42% recycled plastic in total.
We’ve also reduced the tube wall thickness from 0.4 mm to 0.3 mm, which means less plastic is used overall while maintaining the same functionality and durability.
Combined with the slimmer cap design, this further reduces the total packaging material needed per product.
Lip balms made with 96% recycled plastic
We’ve also updated our lip balm packaging from regular PP plastic to recycled plastic.
The following products now use packaging made from 96% recycled plastic:
Progress over perfection
There’s currently no packaging material without environmental impact. But that doesn’t mean we stop improving.
For us, sustainable packaging means constantly asking:
- Is the packaging fully recyclable?
- Can we use less material?
- Can we reuse material that already exists?
- Can we avoid unnecessary packaging altogether?
Small changes might not solve everything overnight — but together they move us closer towards a more closed-loop system with less waste and fewer new resources being used.
Is there such a thing as biodegradable plastic?
Back when we introduced our sugar cane tubes in 2018, we were hopeful that bio-based plastics would continue developing towards fully compostable or biodegradable solutions. At the time, there was a lot of research and optimism around plant-based plastics becoming the next big breakthrough in sustainable packaging.
And to some extent, that vision is already possible today. Some of our packaging — the Zinc Sun Sticks SPF 50 — is already completely biodegradable. Our long-term vision is absolutely to move more and more of our packaging in that direction wherever functionality, safety and durability allow it.
Unfortunately, for many types of cosmetic packaging, truly biodegradable solutions that work reliably in real-world conditions are still limited. And while material innovation continues to move forward, our hopes that sugar cane plastic itself would eventually become compostable haven’t become reality.
Even though sugar cane plastic is made from plants instead of fossil fuels, the final material behaves almost exactly like conventional plastic. It isn’t biodegradable or compostable, and if it ends up in nature, it can still contribute to plastic pollution just like regular plastic.
You’ve probably also seen terms like biodegradable or degradable plastic before — but the reality is often more complicated than the marketing.
Some plastics are designed to break down faster when exposed to sunlight, heat or oxygen. These are often called oxo-degradable plastics. While this might sound promising at first, many of these materials simply fragment into smaller and smaller pieces over time instead of fully disappearing.
In other words: the plastic may become less visible, but it can still remain in the environment as microplastics.
Even compostable plastics usually require very specific industrial composting conditions to break down properly — conditions that are rarely available in normal household waste systems or in nature.
That’s why we believe the focus should not be on creating plastic that disappears faster, but rather on reducing unnecessary packaging, designing packaging that can actually be recycled, and keeping existing materials in use for as long as possible.
What does that leave us with?
Currently, recycling and reusing is still one of the most effective ways of reducing plastic waste and preventing more material from ending up in landfills or nature.
That’s one of the reasons why we’re now transitioning towards PCR packaging. Unlike both conventional fossil plastic and bio-based plastic, PCR helps reduce the need for producing entirely new plastic material. It supports a more closed-loop system where existing materials stay in circulation for longer and are turned into new products instead of being discarded after a single use.
Our PCR packaging can also be fully recycled again, helping extend the lifecycle of the material even further.
There’s still no perfect solution, but increasing recycled content and reducing total material use is currently one of the most practical ways to move towards a more resource-efficient packaging system.
And as packaging technology continues to evolve, you can rest assured that we’ll continue reviewing, questioning and improving our packaging choices wherever we can. Small improvements add up — and we believe sustainability is about continuously moving in the right direction, step by step.
