Designing for Disassembly: How Packaging Hardware Can Support a Circular Economy

Circularity isn’t just about what a package is made from. It’s about what happens after it’s opened, emptied, and on its way out of someone’s life. Image courtesy of Allen Field.

By Rob Ahearn, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Allen Field

Packaging is getting smarter. Lighter materials. Cleaner inks. Boxes that fold flatter, wrap tighter, and don’t demand a guilt trip on the way to the bin. But for all the clever upgrades, one big idea still tends to get lost: are we making the right choices to build the most sustainable package we can — or are we focused on the most convenient, cheapest, or trendy?

And increasingly, consumers are paying attention. According to the 2025 Shorr Sustainable Packaging Consumer Report, 90% of shoppers say they’re more likely to buy from brands using eco-friendly packaging, and over half have deliberately chosen a product in the past six months because of it.¹ That’s not a passing trend — it’s pressure with purchasing power behind it.

Circularity isn’t just about what a package is made from. It’s about what happens after it’s opened, emptied, and on its way out of someone’s life. That’s where most packaging fails — not because it’s unrecyclable but because it was never designed to come undone.

Here’s where things get interesting: the smallest parts—the hardware, the fasteners, the bits and bobs people barely notice—can have an outsized impact on whether a package ends up in the recycling stream or in the trash.

The Underappreciated Middle Child of Package Design

We tend to think of packaging in big, bold terms: fiber versus film, paper versus plastic, rigid versus flexible. But the middle layer—the stuff that holds the rest together—is rarely part of the conversation. And it should be.

Handles, hooks, clips, spacers — these components are usually added last in the design process. They’re treated like accessories. But they’re not. They often determine whether a perfectly recyclable box actually makes it through the recycling process or becomes an obstacle to full circularity.

Material First. Always.

Here’s the deal: most recyclability issues come down to incompatible materials or components that are fused in a way that can’t be undone. A paper box with a hot-glued bracket? Good luck recycling that. A molded insert that rips when you pull it? Same story.

But when those parts are made from recyclable plastics—think polypropylene or HDPE—they have a fighting chance. And if they’re designed to snap in and out instead of being bonded with adhesives, that’s even better.

Some designers are going further and testing bio-based plastics. Sugarcane, cornstarch, even algae-based materials. Are they perfect? No. But in the right use cases, they’re a step toward circularity. Compostable options are also starting to play a role, especially in markets where industrial composting exists and is used regularly.

Take Braskem, for example—their sugarcane-based bio-plastics are already used globally in consumer goods packaging, and the company aims to scale production to one million tons annually by 2030. These materials show promise, especially when paired with packaging components designed for clean separation and easy recovery.

None of this is black and white. Choosing between bio-based, recyclable, or reusable comes down to system design. But ignoring those options altogether? That’s just outdated thinking.

Standardizing product architecture and component materials can make disassembly easier — supporting reuse, remanufacturing, and longer life cycles. © Budsadee – stock.adobe.com

Here’s What Works in Practice

Let’s ditch the hypotheticals. What actually helps?

• Hardware that’s made from a single material — ideally one already accepted by most recycling streams.
• Connectors or brackets that are tool-free, easy to remove, and don’t destroy the base packaging when taken off.
• Materials that can withstand multiple uses or can easily be recovered and reused in real-world conditions — not just in theory.

And one more thing to consider: early collaboration. If you’re choosing hardware after the box is already engineered, you’re solving the wrong problem.

These decisions must happen when the structural design is still on the table — when you can still ask, “How does this come apart?”

Plenty of large brands are already moving in this direction. Best Buy, for example, recently partnered with Sealed Air to switch to packaging with a higher percentage of recycled content. The partnership is part of a broader effort to reduce virgin plastic use — and it highlights how modular, recyclable components can support both performance and environmental goals at scale.

It’s Not Just About Sustainability. It’s About Smart Logistics.

Reusable components aren’t just better for the planet — they’re better for logistics. A connector that allows a crate to fold flat on return saves space and cuts fuel costs. A handle that can be reused 10 times? That’s one less thing you need to buy nine more times. These are business wins, not just environmental ones.

Efficiency is circularity’s best friend. The more we simplify packaging, the more value we keep within the system. That starts with hardware that isn’t designed to be ripped off, thrown away, or ignored entirely.

A recent case study on set-top boxes in the Netherlands found that standardizing product architecture and component materials made disassembly easier — supporting reuse, remanufacturing, and longer life cycles. Even in electronics, where design constraints are tighter, the principle holds: packaging and product components that come apart cleanly are more likely to stay in the loop.

Build it for the Breakdown

The whole point of circularity is that nothing’s final. Everything comes back around. But that only works if it can come back around—if the system lets it.

Designing for disassembly doesn’t mean sacrificing strength, function, or cost. It means treating every component, even the smallest ones, like they have a role to play beyond the unboxing moment.

Recyclable and bio-based materials won’t fix everything. But they’re tools. And if we use them more thoughtfully — especially in structural packaging hardware — we might just build a system that doesn’t throw itself away by design.

Of course, the road to better disassembly isn’t obstacle-free. Cost, complexity and standardization still need to catch up. But as regulations tighten and innovation continues, the brands that solve for these now will lead the next era of sustainable packaging.

About the Author

Rob Ahearn is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Allen Field, where he’s spent more than 20 years helping customers solve real packaging challenges. Known for his deep industry knowledge and relationship-driven approach, he plays a key role in developing smart, practical solutions across multiple industries. Visit https://www.allenfield.com and see this video about smart components: https://vimeo.com/994185988

Reference:

1 https://www.shorr.com/resources/blog/sustainable-packaging-consumer-report/