Market and lifecycle analyses demonstrated that recovery and re- use of Ingeo™ bottles are possible and would be advantageous to the environment compared to petroleum-based bottles. It was just over two years ago that NatureWorks pledged to responsibly and transparently introduce its natural plastic resin bottles for water, dairy, juice and other beverages in the market. Since then, significant strides have been made both by the packaging and recycling industry towards the adoption of bottles made from renewable resources instead of imported oil. "Our twin goals were to work with brand owners on carefully phased bottle introductions and on a parallel track to develop a deeper environmental and technical understanding of end-of- life scenarios for bottles made from renewable resources rather than oil. Both of these efforts saw significant advances from 2007 to 2008," said Marc Verbruggen, president and CEO, NatureWorks. The milestones during this two-year period included a grant from the state of California for a bioresin recycling pilot project, the first national rollout of water bottles made from NatureWorks™ Ingeo™ natural plastic, and a lifecycle analysis that showed the unequivocal environmental and performance benefits that will result when recycling NatureWorks' Ingeo?-based bottles back into bottles. Ingeo™ is highly engineered bioresin made from polylactic acid (PLA). Improved bottle varieties After manufacturing two million bottles and a five-month long pilot project, Primo Water Corp. of Winston Salem, North Carolina, has released its new line of bottled water in Ingeo™ single-serving bottles. Primo Water is the first bottled product with renewable plastic sold across the U.S. Primo was instrumental in forming the Bioplastics Recycling Consortium, an organisation committed to develop a recovery system and end markets for post-consumer bioplastic materials.
In 2008, Good Water of New Zealand completed a successful pilot study of collecting and recycling Ingeo™ based bottles and introduced its new bottled water line. The Kiwi bottler also contributed to the establishment of Greenplastics Inc., an organisation dedicated to developing, promoting and securing options for postconsumer uses of bioresins. "The Primo and Good Water samples show how NatureWorks works responsibly to introduce bottles made from Ingeo," Verbruggen said. "NatureWorks looks for brand owners that share its commitment to reduce dependence on non-renewable resources, reduce the environmental impact of packaging, work transparently with stakeholders, and plan for end-of-life recovery and re-use." Recovery and reuse of bioresin bottles For the past two years, market and lifecycle analyses demonstrated that recovery and re-use of Ingeo™ bottles would be not only doable, once sufficient numbers of bottles enter the waste stream, but also would be better overall for the environment than petroleum-based bottles. In 2007, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg, Germany, completed a lifecycle assessment of various formulations of Ingeo™ bioresin bottles and bottles made from PET. This first-of-its-kind analysis found that the recycling of post-consumer Ingeo™ bioresin back into new water bottles would give environmental, energy and package- performance advantages compared to recycling PET back into bottles. The study also found that the optimum method of making new Ingeo™ bottles from recycled materials was a process called hydrolysis, which is a chemical reaction that breaks down the post-consumer bioresin into lactic acid and can then be re-formulated back into virgin Ingeo?resin. This fundamentally means that Ingeo can achieve cradle-to-cradle re- use, with cradle-to-cradle's consequent energy, environmental
Adidas Falcon
iConnectHub
Access
Login/Register
Supplier Login
