A new multi-recyclable food packaging design is set to hit British supermarket shelves, according to Packaging International’s website.
Conceived by inventor Martin Myerscough, the GreenBottle resembles a standard two-litre milk bottle. But the environmentally-friendly product incorporates eco-features that respond to the mounting issue of UK landfill.
Reportedly, British households and businesses consume the contents of an estimated 15 million plastic liquid bottles every single day. Many of these bottles are ultimately sent to landfill and, on average, a typical plastic bottle can take half a millennium to decompose fully.
That’s the premise for the GreenBottle which, after a trial run at a limited number of (British supermarket chain) Asda branches, is now being made available at Asdas across the country.
The GreenBottle packaging design has two main elements and they’re both recycled.
An inner layer comprised of thin recycled plastic holds the milk, while the exterior is manufactured from recycled paper. This recycled paper is, in itself, recyclable, multiple times. Alternatively, if used more selectively and then disposed, it can break down within weeks.
The GreenBottle has further environmental credentials, too. It uses about 30% of the energy used to make standard milk bottles. And its carbon footprint – its impact on the environment in terms of CO2 emissions – is around 50% of a traditional design.
The finished recyclable eco-packaged milk product doesn’t cost consumers any more to buy, either, as Myerscough explained to the Guardian newspaper.
Myerscough is now looking at bringing the same technology into other types of packaging to produce, for example, environmentally-friendly shampoo bottles and the like.
--Source: Packaging International