04 | 2010

Bottle Applications
Beyond Sustainability - Ethical
Recent revelations in the New Zealand media about the fate of consumer
recycling have raised concerns about all the packaging material used
in consumer products. Industry demand for sustainable alternatives
combined with this media focus has been the catalyst for the launch of a new
organisation whose founders already have a proven record of innovation with
bioplastics in the beverage industry.
Grant Jeffrey, of export food processing company Kiwifruitz and Grant Hall,
of sustainable packaging initiative Good Water Company, have partnered to
establish The Good Packaging Co (GPC), a new business that offers plantbased
packaging solutions that are both sustainable and ethical.
Grant Hall calls himself an enviropreneur and even has this title on his
business card. His primary goal in life is to revolutionise the package recycling
industry by making sustainable, plant based plastics the first choice for food
packaging. “I want everyone to use plastics that can be ‘upcycled‘ into products
that are good for the environment,“ he says. But he happily admits that his
dream is severely hampered by the economic imperative; there isn‘t room in
the profit motive to actively choose packaging material because it is ‘good for
the environment‘. However, he firmly believes that when sufficient volume of
plant based bottles and other packages moves into the recycling stream, what
he calls the ‘upcycling‘ of plastics is viable.
Fig.1: The new 375 ml bottle
Fig. 3: The ‘bottle-to-pottle’ cycle
Water
Hall has been in the bottled water industry for 12 years and about 3 years
ago he successfully launched Good Water in square 650 ml PLA bottles (see
bM 03/2007, bM 05/2008). The water, now also available in a smaller 375 ml
bottle (Fig. 1) comes from Kauri Springs at Kaiwaka, in Northland and the
bottles are made with Ingeo from Natureworks, using plant starch from
sustainable, non-GM corn, but can be made from any other organic waste
product, as Grant pointed out. Even the labels are certified compostable and
sustainable. Grant‘s team are working on a kiwifruit skin/recycled bioplastic
cap to tick the final box. It is still at work in progress but “we will get it right.“
GPC work with Clariant who supply biodegradable, natural and organic
plasticisers for the development of these products.
“It is worthwhile to mention that a lot of flexible injection moulders
here in New Zealand are actively pursuing bioplastics solutions and are
contributing towards the development of these solutions,“ Grant Hall said to
bioplastics MAGAZINE. Elite Polymers for example, a well respected company
are supporting GPC with a 16-cavity cap-tool. “The picture (Fig. 2) shows the
three of us after a test run with a PLA based cap at their facility.“
A second spring water that is now available in PLA in New Zealand is
‘Kiwinatural‘, offered by Kiwifruitz, the PLA bottles supplied by GPC.
Wine
But water is not all: The Enviropreneurs have already partnered with Yealands
Estate Winery. ‘Peter Yealands has New Zealand‘s leading environmentally
sustainable winery, based in Marlborough, and he‘s bravely committed to
doing his wine in a bioplastic bottle. We are now close to developing the world‘s
first compostable green wine bottle. This is a New Zealand innovation, but it‘s
16 bioplastics MAGAZINE [04/10] Vol. 5