Recyclable packaging is economical and can reduce costs for users in many ways. Compared to disposable packaging, recyclable packaging is more standardized, user-friendly, stronger, and reusable, offering multiple cost advantages.

The use of recyclable packaging results in a higher initial investment, yet the variable cost per shipment is lower than that of disposable packaging. Over a longer life cycle, recyclable packaging can provide significant savings. Assuming a company needs to ship 1 million units of product per year, and each unit of recyclable packaging can be used five times per year, 200,000 units of recyclable packaging are required per year, while each unit of disposable packaging can only be used once, requiring 1 million units of disposable packaging per year. Assuming that the unit price of recyclable packaging is 10 yuan and the unit price of disposable packaging is 1 yuan, the recycling rate of recyclable packaging is 98%, that is, 196,000 units of recyclable packaging can be recycled each year, and the service life of recyclable packaging is 5 years. According to our estimation, the total cost of recyclable packaging will start to be lower than that of disposable packaging after using for more than two years.

Several companies are already reaping cost savings from using recycled packaging. As of 2014, Herman Miller has saved $500,000 in packaging costs by using recycled packaging, and Ghirardelli has saved $1.95 million in packaging costs over the five years it has been using recycled packaging.

Considering that the number of times recyclable packaging can be recycled and the price has a significant impact on the cost, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the cost savings of recyclable packaging by assuming that recyclable packaging can be used 5, 10, 15, and 20 times per year, assuming that the unit price of recyclable packaging is $5, $10, $15, and $20, and that the price of disposable packaging does not change significantly and is still assumed to be $1. The number of years of recyclability is assumed to be five years. In the recyclable packaging used 15 times a year, the unit price is $15, the whole life cycle of recyclable packaging compared with disposable packaging can save 3.92 million yuan.