This book explains the role of packaging in sustainable development and for a circular economy, providing in-depth coverage of every aspect of the packaging life cycle from design, management, and end-of-life. Following a review of sustainability, the text describes design thinking as an intrinsic part of packaging and innovation processes and then discusses the use of energy materials used to produce packaging. In the next chapters, the authors address soil, water, and air pollution as well as global climate change. Then, they introduce life cycle assessment (LCA) as a central tool to evaluate the environmental footprint of packaging systems and discuss municipal solid waste (MSW) in different global regions. At its end, the book examines litter and marine pollution, integrating all the chapters to holistically evaluate packaging's environmental footprint.