Sustainable is Good | Where design, lifestyle and packaging meet

Aveda 1978 Clove Shampoo Makes a Comeback in Special Packaging

Aveda recently re-launched the first product it ever made, Clove Shampoo in new packaging that is made from nearly 100% recycled plastic.

Known for their focus on high quality natural personal care products, Aveda (part of Estee Lauder) has been quietly establishing itself as a leader in more environmentally friendly packaging.

Clove Shampoo is simple, light and clean a classic Aveda product.  What better way to celebrate their 30th year in business by bringing back Clove Shampoo in exciting new packaging.

The shampoo bottle features a cap made from 100% post consumer recycled #5 plastic collected through a special program the company organized. 

Using its network of salons & retail stores along with partnerships with schools across the country Aveda is collecting #5 caps from a wide range of products. 

To date the company estimates they have collected 50,000 lbs of caps.  The collected caps are then ground up, washed and made into plastic pellets which are then turned into caps for new Aveda products.

Interestingly the graphic design on the bottle had to be adapted to accommodate the variations in the different shades of the caps - which due to their 100% recycled content would vary slightly in color.

Aveda's 1978 Clove Shampoo is the company's first product to debut with a cap made from 100% post-consumer recycled #5 polypropylene. 

The Clove Shampoo's bottle is made from 96% post-consumer recycled #2 HDPE plastic, from recycled milk bottles.  The combination of the bottle and cap make this product one of Aveda's most environmentally responsible. 

The company plans on continuing to grow their Caps Recycling program and use plastic from the program on more of its products.

SpoonLidz Debuts as Sustainable Single Serve Spoon Built into Packaging Lid

Peggy Cross of Sterling Cross Creative has designed SpoonLidz, a new type of sustainable lid for a variety of food products. 

The cardboard-based lid coverts into a spoon providing the customer a much more sustainable single serving spoon for yogurt, oatmeal, baby food, and many other serve products.

SpoonLidz is making its first major debut today at Pack Expo International in Chicago. 

SpoonLidz satisfies the growing consumer demand for greater levels of eco-friendly, economical, grab-and-go convenience. SpoonLidz is a sustainable over-lid which, in one fold, becomes a sanitary and fun spoon.

There is potentially little or no cost added for the consumer.

The cost is a fraction of other on-pack spoons, and has much less impact on the environment because it’s made from a renewable cardstock with SpectraKote, a new sustainable, slick, moisture-barrier coating.

“We've had an incredible response from both consumers and the trade,” said Peggy Cross, long-time National Brand Marketing/Packaging Director and Principal of Sterling Cross Creative, and now Founder of SpoonLidz.

“In our market research with yogurt, we heard excitement and relief from consumers; now they have a solution to their ongoing problem of having to constantly worry about buying, packing, losing, washing, throwing out or forgetting to pack spoons, for products which they use to-go. Many we surveyed said they would buy more yogurt if it came with the added convenience of a SpoonLidz."

The company says the best part about SpoonLidz is not having to use a plastic spoon any more - which would have a significant positive environmental impact.

Sherwood Forlee: Easy PB&J Jar

Some interesting industrial design from Sherwood Forlee.  His Easy PB&J Jar features a clean and simple glass jar with two lids. 

The Easy PB&J Jar is a jar with two lids that allows you to access all of your peanut butter easily without having to resort to breaking open the jar. As you near the end on one side, simply flip the jar over to get the rest. The straight and smooth internal walls also ensure that no peanut butter is ever left behind a nook or cranny like existing jars.

The design has many applications for food packaging and virtually eliminates wasted product. 

Finding a Good Used Coffee Maker

Reviving a Classic Braun Coffee Maker

If you are a coffee drinker you know the importance of a good quality coffee maker. Most of the units you can buy new these days aren't well built and are almost exclusively made in China.

I've always been a fan of the classic Braun coffee makers and refusing to participate in the disposable appliance cycle it seems everyone in this country is on I keep my eyes open at garage sales and thrift shops for the the older Brauns.

Many of the early Braun coffee makers were made in Germany and sold with reusable filters. The coffee isn't barista grade when brewed but its a damn good cup of coffee as Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks often said.

At a thrift store in Massachusetts I like to frequent I ran into a German made Braun model 3097 complete with a Schott carafe and swiss gold filter. I picked up the coffee maker for $2.99 all it needed was a cleaning.

Restoring a coffee maker usually only requires running a couple cycles of white vinegar and water through the system and giving it a good external cleaning. Using a Skoy cloth, castile soap and and old toothbrush I had the unit in coffee brewing condition in about a day.

I love the industrial design of the old Braun products.

I have two Braun coffee makers the other one I picked up at a church sale for $2 is an Aeromaster – which is a classic icon of industrial design.

Many of these older Braun's were deemed “out of style” by homeowners and replaced with other more modern looking units.

They are now at the height of fashion and look great in a kitchen. If you're looking for a highly functional and well designed coffee maker keep your eyes peeled for a German made Braun at a tag sale, thrift shop or on eBay.

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Innovative On the Go Sandwich Packaging

South African retailer Woolworths recently introduced a new form of packaging for its on the go sandwiches.

The previous version was made from plastic the new version is made from FSC certified cardboard with a corn-based plastic window. 

The packaging design is also innovative.  The cleverly designed box ‘unzips' into a handy, self-contained and disposal tray.

The retailer initially launched the new packs in the Western Cape and began rolling them out nationally from mid September 2008.

The new sandwich packs carry the stamp of approval of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an internationally recognized body backed by a large number of leading conservation groups including WWF-SA.

Julian Novak, Woolworth head of foods explains, “Plastic made from oil is a non-renewable resource. Our new packaging is based on renewable and sustainable resources. The cardboard is certified as coming from well-managed forests, which means we're supporting responsible forest management. We are particularly proud of this packaging because it is the first time that certified sustainable cardboard is being used in South African food packaging.”

Even better, Novak assures customers that the introduction of the new packaging has had no impact on Woolworths sandwich prices.

Treepac Sustainable Packaging for Shipping

Treepac is a new design concept for solving the problem of single use shipping and mailing packages.  The concept was devised by Boston-based design firm Essential Design.

As anyone in business or who is a consumer that buys products online knows shipping packages generates a tremendous amount of waste.  Some of this paper-based packaging, corrugated and other types of mailers can be reused but often times cannot or simply isn't.

Treepac is a reusable shipping container intended to replace cardboard boxes. The structure is made entirely of the sustainable wood-based polymer cellulose acetate.

Treepac is used like cardboard packaging but is designed to enable and encourage people and companies to improve their environmental footprint. The more times each pack is used, the greater its positive effect on the environment.

“When we examined our everyday use of cardboard, we became aware of the quantity of packaging materials we should recycle, appalled at the amount of material we couldn’t, and frustrated by an inability to reuse most of it,” said Design Researcher Dave Siedzik. “We were disheartened that recycling cardboard is a completely inefficient process.”

The Treepac concept mirrors the good features of cardboard boxes while adding new attributes that lower the overall environmental impact of packaging.

Essential researchers, designers and engineers estimate that a recycled cardboard box can have up to eight uses but must be reconstituted in an energy-draining production facility each time.

The Treepac, on the other hand, can be reused again and again thanks to its more durable construction and design. 

Essential Design won a Silver IDEA (International Design Excellence Award) Award in the Ecodesign category for their design of Treepac.

GreenBottle Milk Packaging Debuts in UK

The latest in the ongoing innovations for eco-friendly milk packaging bring us to the UK and a product called GreenBottle.

GreenBottle is a new type of packaging designed for liquids and is made from 91% recycled material, primarily from waste office paper and is 99% recyclable.

Major UK retailer ASDA (owned by Wal-Mart) announced it is offering the new packaging in one of its stores with plans to expand to fourteen more stores in the near future and possibly nationwide.

Martin Myerscough, GreenBottle's designer created the product to replace plastic bottles.

The packaging consists of a pulped recycled cardboard outer similar to what is used to make egg cartons and a corn-based bioplastic bag liner.

The inner liner takes up less than .5% of the space of a plastic bottle if disposed of in a landfill and will biodegrade in about six weeks.

After the milk is gone, the bioplastic bag can be removed and composted/disposed of, and the outer shell can be recycled or composted.

Myerscough told Lets Recycle, "The plastic part could be composted, but it is a very thin bag.  The cardboard could go in a paper or green waste collection and then people who don't recycle can put it all into the general waste as it will biodegrade."

Chris Brown, Head of Ethical and Sustainable Sourcing at ASDA, said, “Milk is one of our highest selling products, and as such, we have a responsibility to develop alternative packaging making it easier for our customers to go green and to help them recycle at home."

Brown also addressed another positive of GreenBottle, no spillage.  “Also, unlike products that are being trialled by other retailers such as the pouch, this milk bottle is robust, practical and fit for purpose, meaning there is no danger of spilled milk at breakfast time.”

Consumer reaction GreenBottle in initial milk packaging trials at ASDA last year was highly positive.  It will be interesting to see how this latest product launch will go and it will surely have an impact on GreenBottle's future use and application.

Additional Packaging Uses for GreenBottle beyond Milk

We may see GreenBottles used for other types of packaging including; juices, smoothies, yogurt drinks, water, shampoos, hand creams, liquid detergents, engine oils and more. 

Method Switches Lines to 100% Post Consumer Recycled Packaging

San Francisco based Method has converted three of its U.S. product lines covering nine SKUs to 100% post consumer recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottles from Amcor PET Packaging. 

The conversions, which affect 28, 25 and 12 ounce bottles, are thought to represent the first 100% post consumer recycled (PCR) applications in the United States for household cleaning products. The company had previously been using 100% virgin PET resin for these bottles.

By converting to 100% PCR on the 28-ounce bottle the carbon footprint was reduced by a significant 60 percent or 63.14 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per thousand containers produced.  When the same bottle was produced in virgin PET, emissions were 104.67 kg CO2e per thousand.

Method Products was founded in 1999 on a strong environmental platform which includes the use of biodegradable ingredients in its formulations and “most readily” recyclable packaging for its containers.  The introduction of Method’s 100% PCR bottles, once again, redefines the cleaning products category with an even stronger sustainability position.

The product lines affected are method’s 28-ounce All Purpose Cleaners (lavender, pink grapefruit and cucumber) and daily shower spray (ylang ylang); 25-ounce floor cleaners (lemon ginger and wood for good), and 12-ounce surface cleaners (daily granite, stainless steel and wood for good polishes).

Method's rPET Packaging Success in the UK lead to similar development in US

“Because we had been successful with 100% PCR bottles in the U.K., we wanted to explore what could be done in the U.S.,” explains Jason Crouch, director of procurement, method.

However, unlike the European supply infrastructure which is more vertically integrated, obtaining a consistent supply of PCR flake suitable for blow molding PET bottles has not been established in the United States. 

“When method came to us last year on this project, we were hoping to get to 50% PCR content.  In our trials, we tested 10, 25, 50, 75 and 100%.  That’s when we discovered that 100% PCR content was not out of the question, but we knew we had a lot of work ahead of us before we could be confident that the bottles meeting all of the criteria could be produced at commercial rates,” says Greg Rosati, business director, personal care, Amcor.

The first challenge was finding a suitable supply source.  This meant identifying a company that could source a supply stream with the right characteristics and be able to repelletize the flake so that it could be used to produce bottles.

“Ideally, you want the original PET bottles not to have been commingled with any other plastic type.  The best source from a material purity standpoint is PET carbonated soft drink bottles that have been collected from a deposit-based program.  Second best are bottles that have been curbside collected,” Rosati says. 

“Additionally, we needed to tap into a company that could provide the desired material quality on a consistent basis and who also has the technology to create pellets from the flake that results when these bottles are ground up.”

On the processing side of things, multiple obstacles needed to be overcome.  For example, PCR has a much lower intrinsic viscosity (IV) than virgin resin.  Since the resulting PET molecular chains are shorter, Amcor had to relearn how to process the material.  Additionally, the gray and blue scale color readings had to be at a certain level or the material would not be able to produce a clear bottle.  (Five of the SKUs using 100% PCR are in clear PET bottles; colorants are used for the rest.)

“Method and Amcor engineers worked cooperatively with each other to overcome each of the material, production and performance challenges that presented themselves throughout the project,” Crouch says.

The project started last June with trials taking place between August and November.  Full scale production took place in December.  (Bottles are stretch blow molded at Amcor’s state-of-the-art Nicholasville, KY plant.) Product starting making its way onto retail shelves in February.

“Not only has this been a learning experience for both Amcor and method, but resin suppliers have also benefited. The end result is a bottle that is having a positive impact to the environment,” Crouch says.

More rPET Packaging Coming this fall from method?

Method's Katie Molinari told Sustainable is Good the company is actively working to, "increase our assortment of products made from 100% recycled plastic by this fall."  We may expect to see more method products packaged in recycled plastic coming shortly. 

JUGIT Container for Milk Pouch Packaging

RPC Containers Market Rasen’s expertise in the injection molding of unusually shaped containers has been instrumental in the launch of an exciting new concept in milk packaging, the JUGIT.

RPC Containers Market Rasen has launched JUGIT, a product designed to make bagged milk more acceptable to consumers. 

Developed by Dairy Crest in association with the Sainsbury’s supermarket chain, JUGIT offers consumers a pouch-based format that uses substantially less packaging material than conventional plastic milk containers, allied to the convenience of an easy-to-pour, reusable jug manufactured by RPC Market Rasen.

“Consumers are increasingly conscious about the environmental impact of packaging, and material reduction is a key means of improving this,” explains Richard Pryor, Innovation Controller at Dairy Crest.

“A huge amount of plastic is used annually in the manufacture of milk containers, but pouches require only 25% of the plastic found in the equivalent size of container, making them extremely attractive from the viewpoint of sustainability.”
RPC Market Rasen Enables Sainsbury's to 'JUGIT"

Dairy Crest trialled pouches in Sainsbury’s in 2001 but, while successful, the format was not deemed ready for the mainstream marketplace. Today, Pryor believes that consumers are now prepared to make the change.

“The example of countries such as Canada, where consumers have successfully switched to this ‘greener’ way of buying milk, suggests the same can be achieved in the UK.”

To encourage reusability of the JUGIT, the only part that needs to be cleaned between pouches is the spike attachment. JUGIT is sold with two of these, so that consumers do not have to wash the attachment before fitting each new pouch. A detachment handle is also supplied to enable greater flexibility in pouring.

Dairy Crest asked RPC Market Rasen to turn the JUGIT concept into a workable pack because of its proven track record in creating complex packaging formats. The fact that the site is UK based was also a factor, reducing the freight miles involved in delivery of the jug.

RPC Market Rasen worked closely with Dairy Crest, Vibrandt 1hq and pouch manufacturer Glopak to ensure seamless integration of the four parts of the JUGIT – jug, lid, spike and handle – as well as the necessary durability for long-term reuse.

The lid, spike and handle are injection molded in white # 5 PP, while clear material is used for the two pint jug. This enables the Sainsbury’s branded pouch to be seen throughout its product life, while Dairy Crest has also taken advantage of the clarity by placing the cardboard sleeve used to brand JUGIT inside the jug.

RPC Market Rasen is currently manufacturing JUGIT using a pilot mold to coincide with the trial launch of the format in selected Sainsbury’s stores. If the trial proves successful, full tooling will be commissioned to enable a full national launch in 2009.

Method Uses Packaging to Unify New Personal Care Collection

San Francisco-based Method's new natural personal care collection features packaging that gives the line its own unique identity. 

The collection consists of three products: body wash, creamy hand wash and a body bar.

The collection's hand and body wash are packaged in #2 HDPE plastic bottles which feature a quilted pattern design. The square quilted pattern is also present in the body bar.

The quilted design holds the line together visually making it easily identifiable on store shelves and in consumers minds. 

The packaging was designed in-house by Method's own design team.

“The quilted look for the natural moisturizing personal care line is designed to connote the soft moisturizing formula within the bottles,” said Method's Rachel Goldberg.

“The designer also considered the existing décor of bathrooms, which are usually tiled. They were designed to be decorative but in a subtle, sophisticated way.”

The hand wash packaging is square and features an easily removable label allowing consumers to have the packaging blend in with their own home environment

Method's Director of Marketing, Katie Molinari told Sustainable is Good the removable label was purposely incorporated into the creamy hand wash packaging. “We don't believe that a logo needs to, or should be, a prominent feature in a home care product,” said Molinari.

“We design our products for the home and treat them as accessories to compliment someone's personal style. We hope people will recognize Method products by their unique design rather than a logo or label.”

When the label is removed the packaging is only distinguishable as a Method product by an embossed “m” on the side of the bottle.

Molinari added the body wash packaging is made from 25% recycled HDPE plastic.

Sustainable is Good was unable to obtain information from Method on who is producing the packaging.  A previous incarnation of Method's body wash was produced by Amcor.