Polyethylene 9x More Efficient To Source From Sugar Cane Over Corn.

Tetra Pak is to pilot the use of renewable polyethylene as a raw material in the manufacture of its plastic caps and closures within the next two years. The carton manufacturer has signed an agreement with Brazilian company Braskem, a thermoplastic resin producer, to buy limited volumes of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) from a renewable feedstock.

According to TreeHugger.com:

“Brazilian plastic company Braskem SA reports that, using ethanol feedstock, their polyethylene process, scheduled to operate commercially in 2011, will make product with exactly the same characteristics as polyethylene derived from petroleum. Environmental- and cost-efficiency of the process hangs on feedstock choice. It will be “nine times as efficient to derive ethanol from sugarcane as from corn, and four-and-a-half times as efficient compared to ethanol derived from sugar beets.” Even more strikingly, a spokesman for Braskem reported, manufacture of one pound of petroleum-based polyethylene “releases 2.5 kg of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,…whereas the same amount of sugarcane-based PE captures that same amount of the gas.”

Read more at packagingnews.co.uk and TreeHugger.com.

Related Posts
Ecolean Packaging, A Unique Alternative
Forget Paper or Plastic, Wrap it Up in Banana Leaves!
Effervescent Plastics Promise More With Less
Recycled Beverage Containers

Seattle Is Styrofoam Free!

Along with cities like Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA, Seattle is making the jump to eliminating EPS (expanded polystyrene) from all food service facilities effective January 1, 2009. Mayor Nickels and Council President Conlin have proposed a complete conversion from EPS products to compostable and recyclable replacements by July 1, 2010. This is an important difference from previous attempts to get rid of Styrofoam because often, the alternatives used were not any better. With more compostable products coming on to the market today the conversion may be much quicker than expected.

To help identify what products fall into this category, they are directing citizens to a list of compostable products from the Cedar Grove Composting site in Washington. Many of the products on the list include corn based PLA plastics and recycled paper containers. Perhaps these kinds of mandates will also help increase the production of other solutions that could help us think outside the box (pun intended) like the banana leaf wrapper.

We’ve been keeping our own list of compostable and sustainable packaging that could help Seattle reach it’s goal, take a look!

Rlated Posts
Paper Water Bottle Replaces Plastic
Closing the Loop on Plastic Bottle Recycling
Green Festival San Francisco
Inspiration for Designers Worldwide
100% Sustainable House at West Coast Green

Design Students Want YOU To Recycle

This year, the Glass Packaging Institute conducted their first ever Recycle Glass Day YouTube video competition. Over 80 students from six universities participated in the battle for $5,000 by creating videos encouraging folks to recycle. The videos were judged based on originality and creativity (50%); communicating the “glass message” (30%); and production technique and value (20%).

The winner was a group of Michigan State University students who created a stop-motion animated video, cleverly preaching: “glass can’t recycle itself”. As a highly renewable natural material, glass’s diversity has played an important role in sustainable design. It only makes sense that design students where amongst the major participants in this competition.

To find out more about the competition and to further your knowledge in how glass is recycled, please visit the Packaging Digest

Relate Posts
Save the Mattress! The Discarded Dreams Design Competition
The Suburb Eating Robot
Strategies for Shaping a Sustainable Future: THINK B.I.G. at Brown University
Riso National Laboratory
Private: Prefabrication and Modularity

Forget Paper or Plastic, Wrap it Up in Banana Leaves!

Today the majority of disposable goods are wrapped in man-made, often petro-based materials that usually last far longer than the items they protect. With many companies spending millions on R&D searching for more sustainable alternatives, an Israeli designer named Tal Marco has taken a decidedly low-tech and refreshing approach to package design with his use of natural banana leaves. Banana leaves are highly flexible, easy to open and have a naturally waxy surface that is ideal for food applications.

Banana leaves have been used for centuries as plates and for preserving and cooking food in India and South East Asia but have unfortunately been overlooked in most of the western world. Although not a completely novel idea, Marco’s design uses die-cut leaves that can be folded into numerous forms and lend themselves well to many retail applications. His design was showcased in Designboom’s “Dining in 2015” design competition and the concept puts many of the most “environmentally friendly” packages on the market today to shame.

Designboom’s Dining in 2015 Competition

Related Posts
Seattle is Styrofoam Free!
Superior Dairy Brings Back the Flattop
Private: Tetra Pak and Alternatives for Liquid Food Packaging
Not Your Grandma’s Foam Peanuts

Paper Water Bottle Replaces Plastic

If water is life’s essential elixir, then bottled water would be a convenient way of giving us this magical liquid on the go. There are an endless number of brands with water formulations ranging from vitamin enhanced to electrolyte rich. Plain old H2O is practically obsolete. Even with all of these options, it’s hard to steer away from your run of the mill plastic bottle. A whopping 16 million bottles are tossed every day. Sure they are recyclable, but only 14% of them actually end up getting recycled. Not only that, but the energy it takes to recycle the bottles is astronomical. Most water companies recommend that you do not reuse their water bottles because of the bacteria that can potentially grow.

As the green trend grows, a demand for an alternative to the common plastic or glass bottle has risen, but using another material to house liquids comes with many challenges. Brainimage thought outside of the plastic by developing a unique food grade 100% recyclable paper bottle that can stand up to liquids of all categories.

There’s no word on when the bottle will be commercially available.

Via the Dieline- a blog dedicated to package design.

Related Posts
Recycled Cardboard Made Into Furniture
Richlite, A Great Eco Material From Hemp and Certified Pulp
Materials from Detergent Bottles, Swimming Pool Covers, and Old Tires
What Happens to All That Glass?
Ecolean Packaging, A Unique Alternative

Innovators in Skin for Skincare

The growing trend in skincare is formulating all natural and organic solutions for the skin. However, few of them have put that much thought into their outer packaging. The following companies have taken an extra step to make the skin for their skincare a little more than just recyclable.

Bryan Meehan, founder of the UK based skincare line Nude, thought outside of the box and got rid of it completely by developing block-like containers that are easily stackable and are sealed in a 100% corn based biodegradable plastic. Each container is made from 40% post-consumer plastic and is completely recyclable. Nude has also taken an extra step in making their gift bags and educational pamphlets earth friendly by sourcing post-consumer paper as well as printing with non-toxic inks.

Jurlique, Australia’s number one selling skincare line, practices biodynamic farming for their products as well as a portion of their packaging. These highly efficacious products are available in boxes that are made from 80% post consumer paper and their bottles are recyclable glass. If you can’t decide on one product, you can try one of their starter kits that are housed in 100% biodegradable packages resembling egg cartons. Like Nude, Jurlique has taken the extra step in making their shopping bags and literature out of post consumer materials as well as using non-toxic inks.

Cargo’s Plant Love line includes plant based cosmetics in biodegradable corn based tubes. The outer box made from paper embedded with seeds that you can plant so that you can grow flowers that are almost as pretty as your face.

Related Posts
What’s New at The Body Shop?
Forget Paper or Plastic, Wrap it Up in Banana Leaves!
Seattle is Styrofoam Free!
LeStellaSac Season 2

The Baja BBQ Firepack by mike and maaike

This product has nothing to hide, and what you witness in these photographs is what makes it such a bold work of genius. From San Francisco design duo mike and maaike, comes the Baja BBQ Firepack (patent pending), which offers a dramatically innovative and environmentally sensitive approach to outdoor grilling. Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers designed the Firepack for Design Annex/Lazzari, a San Francisco-based cooking fuel company in business since 1908, with the hopes of making an American pastime, a cleaner and more practical process. By housing 2 lbs of natural lump coal within a burnable structure made from 100% recycled biodegradable paper pulp, the product will burn when lit from the bottom, and virtually transform itself into working coals within 15 to 20 minutes. It obviates the need for starter chimneys or polluting and (and toxic) lighter fluids, to say nothing of the drudgery of cleaning up a messy fire pit or grill at the end of the night.

Just in time for those Dog Days, the Baja BBQ Firepack will surely be a practical addition to a summer party or picnic where grilling takes place. The Firepack is currently available at gourmet supermarkets. For more information on this product and the designers themselves, please visit mike and maaike.

(All photographs courtesy of mike and maaike)

Related Posts
Samsung Blue Earth – The First Solar Powered Touchscreen Phone
Mission One (electric, silent, performance bike)
The Self Powered iPod Recycling Speaker
The Health-Conscious and Eco-Friendly Chair

Ecolean Packaging, A Unique Alternative

Ecolean makes a packaging system that uses a material which is based on calcium carbonate (aka, made from a chalk). They are calling their patented material “Calymer” and it consists of 40% calcium carbonate, natural chalk and polymers (PE and PP) as the binding agent. The packages are manufactured and printed by Ecolean in accordance with each food producer’s instructions. They are then delivered on reels to the factory (who will be adding the contents), hygienic and hermetically pre-sealed. Their Calymer material should not be confused with biodegradable plastics on the market as they follow a different life-cycle. According to their site, upon disposal, a used Calymer package can either be recycled as a traditional plastic or “recovered as energy by incineration.”

The Ecolean Calymer material comes with a full Food Contact Approval Certificate and has improved organoleptic properties over traditional plastic packaging options, meaning that it will preserve the freshness and protect the containers contents longer. The system requires their proprietary production line with filling machines and packing stations. The filling machine opens, fills and re-seals the packages in 2.4 seconds. Although their Ecolean packaging is available with the system, the Calymer material itself is not for sale.

Related Posts
Private: Tetra Pak and Alternatives for Liquid Food Packaging
Paper Water Bottle Replaces Plastic
Advances in Plastic Recycling
Forget Paper or Plastic, Wrap it Up in Banana Leaves!