You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to become a green company. The road to greeniness is taken one small step at a time.

One of those small steps is to cut back on packaging materials.

Sprint has redesigned its product packaging and expects to chalk up another $2.1 million in savings a year. The latest savings come by reducing the amount of packaging Sprint uses on its accessory products for its line of cell phones. The new eco-friendly designs use less material and reduce packaging costs by 35%.

The new accessory packaging is 20% to 40% smaller than before, and because it’s 100% recyclable, Sprint expects to reduce waste sent to landfills by 647 tons a year. The eco-friendly changes include:

• replacing the existing PVC clamshell with PET plastic that is a more recyclable material
• switching from petroleum-based inks to those made from soy and vegetables, which cuts ozone pollution created by volatile organic compound emissions, and
• using only paperboard that is certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council.

These packaging changes are just the latest in a series of innovations and product improvements that have been adopted as part of Sprint’s green campaign that caters to market demand for green products. For example, the company recently introduced its new Reclaim phone that contains 80% recycled materials.

The company is also using renewable energy to reduce its carbon footprint by avoiding the greenhouse gas emissions associated with coal-fired electricity. For example, Sprint’s headquarters building gets 80% of its electricity from wind power.

Tags: eco-friendly packaging, Reclaim, recycled materials, Sprint