Sustainable is Good | Where design, lifestyle and packaging meet

Curtis Packaging Producing Target Archer Farms FSC Certified Packaging

In October we reported on new packaging that Target's Archer Farms Organic line was using.  The packaging was made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paperboard stock and produced using renewable energy.  At the time of the story it was unknown who was producing the packaging and Target did not respond to our inquiries.  We have since learned Curtis Packaging is producing the packaging for Target's Archer Farms Organic line. 

According to Curtis, they are the first printing and packaging company in North America to be 100% Carbon Neutral, use 100% renewable energy, and be FSC certified. 

Related to packaging for Target, Curtis is currently working exclusively with Target's Archer Farms Organic line.  Curtis's Rosanna D'Oleo told Sustainable is Good Target has expressed interest in "possibly expanding the FSC certified packaging to other lines of Archer Farms."  D'Oleo said while there was interest no specific plans or time frame for expanding the packaging has been established. 

D'Oleo said Curtis is constantly innovating to bring to their customers the latest environmentally friendly packaging techniques.  The company focuses on serving the health & beauty, personal care, liquors, and gourmet foods/confections industries.

Method Refill Pouch Packaging Expanding

San Francisco-based Method is finding success with its innovative packaging configuration for its liquid hand soap refills.  Method's refill pouch is now widely available across the country and according to Method's Katie Molinari will be expanding into other forms of their liquid soaps by March.

The pouch itself is a stock pouch from Winpack International in Hayward, CA.  The pouch was added to the Method lineup to serve as a refill for the teardrop hand soap bottle Karim Rashid designed. 

Method's design team led by Creative Director Stefanie Hermsdorf wanted the pouch to be translucent as opposed to opaque. "We wanted translucent because it showed off the colored liquid inside in the same way that our existing bottles do," said Molinari. 

Method is currently working on expanding their refill pouches.  In March Method will offer pouch refills for its foaming hand wash and also add a refill pouch for its popular "go naked" hand wash to its existing liquid soap refills. 

The company is also working on a redesign of the graphic design for the pouch.  Addressing concerns over readability of some of the white text on its current pouch refills, Method's new pouches will be white with "images of the colored bottle scattered across the front in a free-form mosaic," Molinari said. 

According to Method the refill pouch uses 83% less plastic than a similar PET bottle and in turn needs less energy to produce. "Consumers are responding well to the refill and we encourage our customers to purchase refills when available as they use considerably less plastic than thick PET containers," said Molinari.  Method hand wash refills are currently available at Target and other stores including Home Depot, Schnucks, Gristedes and more

How to Use Less Stretch Film for Pallet Unitization

Stretch film, a linear low density polyethylene pallet wrapping material, is the overwhelming choice for unitizing loads for truck and rail shipment. Although a wrapped pallet usually uses one pound of stretch film or less, the weight adds up quickly. U.S. stretch film consumption is in the neighborhood of 1 billion pounds per year.

Shippers can make a big dent in consumption by taking advantage of new film technologies, more efficient equipment, and careful review of their application.

New Films. Since stretch film first became popular in the late 1970's, manufacturers have steadily improved film quality and performance. Today's films stretch more, exert stronger holding force on the load, and have much greater puncture resistance. As a result, shippers can use thinner films and apply less film to their loads without compromising pallet integrity. Unfortunately, in many shipping operations, films are neither tested nor upgraded on a regular basis. A film which was "state of the art" in 2004 may be a mediocre performer by 2008 standards.

Efficient Equipment. Stretch film can be applied to pallets by hand or with a machine. When applied manually, films are typically stretched only 25-40%. However, when applied by a conventional stretch wrap machine employing a rudimentary core braking system, stretch percentages can exceed 100%. To obtain even greater yields, shippers can use machinery with a powered pre-stretching system capable of stretching film as much as 300%. Small volume shippers find it difficult to justify the cost of powered pre-stretch equipment, which runs into the low or mid five-figures. For them a better, less expensive alternative is to retrofit pre-stretch attachments onto existing standard brake machines. For high volume shippers, an ROI of 12 months or less is common when upgrading from conventional to powered pre-stretch equipment.

Fred Natural Spring Water

New York, NY - based Fred Brands producers of Fred bottled water announced a new packaging configuration last week designed at making their water easier to sell in new retail environments and markets.

Fred is an interesting brand as they have focused heavily on their image with younger consumers offering a trendzine called FredSpot and Myspace page to promote the bottled water line.   

The new packaging is a paperboard "six-pack" style package designed to hold six bottles of Fred water.  The packaging is made from recycled paperboard and is printed using Soy-based inks. 

The company says the packaging will offer consumers a new option in buying Fred water, one they believe is important to offer as they are expanding into new markets across the country.

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Clorox Green Works

Oakland-based Clorox has been quite the hot topic of late within green circles with its recent acquisition of Burt's Bees.  The company most well known for producing bleach is working on crafting a greener image with consumers.  Using its strong brand recognition and fueled by tremendous growth and interest in greener more eco-friendly household products Clorox has introduced a new product line called Green Works.  Green Works combines the strong trustworthy image of "clean" the Clorox brand enjoys with new product formulations that are 99% natural. 

Green Works is made from plant-based ingredients derived from coconuts and lemon oil, one of the products in the line, the Glass & Surface Cleaner also uses corn-based ethanol.  The ingredients used in Green Works products are sustainable, non-allergenic and biodegradable. "We worked with our suppliers to ensure that they were providing natural, plant- or mineral-based raw materials and asked them to show us their entire supply chain to prove the ingredients were natural. What we have with Green Works products are cleaners with the most natural profile available in today's market: Our products are all at least 99 percent natural and we will not be satisfied until we can get our formulas to be 100 percent natural," said Suzanne Thompson, Vice President of Research & Development, Cleaning Division.   

All Green Works packaging is currently stock packaging according to Mary Seltzer with Ketchum, a PR firm handling the Green Works product line.  The packaging is easily recyclable.  Creative design for the packaging and labeling was done by Clorox's in-house design team. 

"Our brand marketing team wanted a label design that would create shelf-pop versus traditional cleaners and communicate the brand promise of powerful cleaning done naturally. We wanted something that was clean, simple and yet still powerful. Something that would stand out from what we typically see in the cleaning aisles, which is how we came up with the Gerbera Daisy design. The daisy is a visual icon for what Green Works is about. Natural, Simple and It Works."

The 2008 “7 R’s” of Anti-Sustainability

With tongue in cheek and apologies to the Wal-Mart version we have all heard, please consider these thoughts that are sure to help us NOT achieve sustainability in 2008.

1. Refuse to consider thoughts and opinions other than your own. If you are right and everyone else is wrong, why bother?

2. Remain glued to the status quo. After all if what you have been doing works, why take a chance on changing anything?

3. Reject any idea that even remotely sounds like compromise even though sometimes, that is the best way to accomplish progress.

4. Resist any new technology unless it is absolutely perfect and supports your position. “See I told you it wouldn’t work” can be all so satisfying.

5. Ridicule anyone who appears to be profiting from their work in sustainability, especially if their margin appears to exceed your own.

6. Repel anyone seeking knowledge or help. Everyone knowing as much as you do cannot be a good thing.

Last but not least

7. Resign yourself to the fact that the environmental problem is too large to be fixed. Seek new goals that are easier to achieve!

Welch's New PET Juice Bottle

Welch's, a leading juice manufacturer recently announced new PET packaging for six varieties of its 100 percent juice blends.  The new innovative packaging is made by Amcor and is a custom 14oz bottle from their PowerFlex line.

The new Welch's PET bottle is the first custom application of an Amcor PET bottle.  The bottle design eliminates many of the edges characteristic in PET bottles and allows Welch's more smooth bottle space for enhanced marketing and branding opportunities. 

According to published reports the proprietary design is Welch's first panel-less, shelf-stable bottle featuring an ergonomic contoured design and a full shrink wrap label. 

Amcor's PowerFlex PET bottle is designed to closely mimic the look and feel of glass.  The bottles are designed to work with existing glass bottling equipment allowing current glass bottlers to make an easy switch to the PET bottle if desired.

Why Do We Use So Much Stretch Film?

Stretch film, made from various formulations of linear low density polyethylene film, is used just about everywhere to hold loads together on pallets. Since most of us do not see the palletized loads that move inside trucks and rail cars, it may surprise you to learn how much of this plastic film is being pumped into the waste stream.

Reliable industry figures are hard to come by, but a conservative estimate of U.S. stretch film capacity is something in excess of 1 billion pounds, which works out to approximately 8,333 rail cars of stretch film material. If those rail cars were passing you on the tracks at a clip of one car every three seconds, you'd have to wait seven hours for the entire train to pass.

Although U.S. annual consumption is not at full capacity, we are nevertheless dealing with a massive amount of plastic waste. What happens to it? Some of it is recycled, but most of it winds up in the garbage.

Why is stretch film so widely used? To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, stretch film is the worst form of pallet unitization except all the others that have been tried.

Biodegradable Packaging for Wine Bottles

San Francisco Chronicle Wine Editor Jon Bonne receives many samples of wine for review throughout the year.  Most of the wine is packaged using some form of Styrofoam to product the bottles and product.  He was surprised when a bottle of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc arrived packaged in biodegradable cornstarch-based packaging.

The New Zealand winery which is owned by Icon Wine Estates is beginning to use the new packaging on a limited basis.  The packaging is made from Green Cell foam, produced by KTM Industries of Lansing, Michigan and is distributed by American Canyon-based Packaging Plus. 

The corn-based packaging is made from the same type of material the increasingly popular corn-based packaging peanuts are made from.  The packaging is biodegradable and dissolves in water. 

Bonne was impressed with the new packaging and wondered why he wasn’t seeing it being used by more companies.  Cost is the major issue according to a piece Bonne wrote in Friday’s Chronicle a two bottle corn-based mailer costs about $5, compared to $1 for molded paper-pulp packaging and around $1.20 for petroleum-based foam.  “It may be a while before it hits the mainstream,” says Packaging Plus general manager Barry Salt.

via The Sipping News

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