How To Package A Green Product

This post is the first in our new content partnership with the Green Options network which is a community dedicated to environmental resources, education, and discussion. This post first appeared on Ecopreneurist.

We’re green entrepreneurs right? We eschew over-packaging. We skip the plastic overwrap. We limit the packing materials. We think reusable.

But…will consumers pay for it?

A recent Nielsen study shows that half of all US consumers would give up all convenience packaging if it would benefit the environment.

• 58 percent feel that packaging designed for easy stacking/storing at home is dispensable
• 55 percent would give up packaging that can be used for cooking, or doubling as a re-sealable container
• 53 percent don’t need packaging designed for easy transport

As green company business owners we try to make every aspect of our products green, including how they are packaged. Often that means thinking reusable. That may not always be the smartest choice if it increases product cost, especially as prices for everything from raw materials to transportation are increasing these days.

On the other hand, some consumers will pay extra if the package provides selected benefits. But, notice not even half of all consumers would.

At the same time, the study finds that:

• 26 percent of U.S. consumers are least willing to give up packaging designed to keep products clean and untouched by other shoppers
• 31 percent want to keep packaging designed to keep products in good condition
• 31 percent want to keep packaging that preserves products to make them last longer and stay fresher
• 33 percent need packaging information, including food labeling

As the market for green products get more competitive green entrepreneurs have to spend more time considering how packaging impacts their cost of doing business. Limiting materials makes sense. Increasing the cost of your product with something consumers aren’t willing to pay for, when big high volume companies are suddenly your competitors, does not.

Products Made From Bamboo

When choosing a microwave for our new home a while back, my girlfriend asked me whether they made any out of wood. Oh, how I laughed. But it seems that the reality might not be that far off. I’m not sure whether al these products source bamboo from sustainable forests, but bamboo is very fast growing and manageable and they certainly look nice and should be better for the environment than current metal and plastic options.

My favourite is this flat screen monitor from Play Engine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also there’s this mouse to go with it.

 

 

 

 

And there are some fancy bamboo cases for your ipod too from Temas.

 

 

 

 

Green Cooking News

BBC Good Food magazine has lots of good “green” food and kitchen news and advice.

Innocent drinks have been trying to work out the carbon footprint of their (admittedly delicious) smoothies. In collaboration with the Carbon Trust and the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management, Innocent have found that transporting it’s Mango and Passion Fruit smoothie resultd in relatively low emissions but creating the packaging caused much higher emissions.

Kitchen gadgets can obviously be a major source of energy consumptiopn, but some are more efficient than others. The following examples all use one unit of electricity:
- Mixing a cake a week in a mixer for one year.
- Cooking 1.3kg of chips in a deep-fat fryer.
- Blending over 400 litres of soup.
- Grinding over 90kg of coffee in a coffee mill.
- Boiling 6.8 litres (12 pints) of water in a kettle.

Over 6.7m tonnes of food waste is generated by households each year (costing around £250-£400) and around 50% of this is still edible. A few tips to reduce your food waste:

• Plan meals ahead so you don’t buy food that you won’t use.
• Use-by dates are a huge reason for waste so try to plan ahead.
• Don’t buy too much at once, just because you’re in the store. You can always go back again int he (unlikely) event you need more.
• Set your fridge to be between 1 and 5C so food keeps as best it can.
• Use leftovers creatively or better still, don’t make too much in the first place.
• Compost as much leftovers and scraps as you can.

[Via: BBC Good Food]

Environmentally Friendly Plastic Bottles

There have been great advances in the manufacturing of sustainable product packaging, rather than using plastic (three million tons of plastic are thrown away in the UK annually).

British company Greenbottle make a biodegradable milk bottle that uses a smart two-part system to aid recycling. The bottles are composed of a cardboard outer manufactured from pulped, recycled cardboard, which is lined with an inner sleeve of biodegradable plastic made from corn starch. The plastic keeps the cardboard from becoming soggy, and the cardboard makes for easy transport, storage and pouring. Once the bottle is empty, the inner sleeve can be pulled out and will decompose in a landfill within six weeks. The cardboard outer can be put out for recycling with other paper or thrown in with kitchen and garden waste for home composting.

The bottles currently cost up to 30% more than their plastic counterparts, but costs will go down once production steps up.

Also a French company called Sidel have created a new bottle called “water skin” that is a lighter alternative to traditional PET bottles. A regular plastic half-litre water bottle weighs 13 - 16 grams, however Sidel’s NoBottle weighs just 9.9 grams. According to Sidel, “Water is the largest beverage market by volume with 160 billion litres consumed in 2006. It also represents the highest growth sector and is expected to expand by 5.7 percent annually between now and 2010.” On that scale, waste reduction of 20-30% adds up.

By using a highly flexible type of plastic with shape-memory, which lets the bottle bounce back into shape after being gripped or otherwise compressed, they can achieve these impressive gains. Whilst clearly using plastic at all isn’t eco-friendly it is definitely eco-friendlier than current bottles.

Do you know of any better or innovative solutions to reducing plastic bottle waste?

[Via: Springwise here and here]