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Guinness and Other Brewers Get Greener Packaging

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Green beer used to be a St. Patrick’s Day gimmick, but a sustainability movement seems to be taking off in the beer packaging industry.

Diageo, the manufacturer of St. Patrick’s Day favorite, Guinness, announced in April that they will eliminate plastic from their beer packaging. In the two months since the Guinness announcement, the brewer of Mexican beer Corona has introduced a new can that doesn’t require plastic ring carriers.

Plastic-Free Guinness

This isn’t the first time Guinness has tried something revolutionary. They were the first brewer to establish a scientific research lab, which led to the use of nitrogenation in beer. Now, beverage distributor Diageo has poured $21 million into a plastic-free packaging program. Diageo also owns the Harp and Smithwicks breweries. It will eliminate plastic packaging from those brands as well.

Plastic currently accounts for only about five percent of Guinness’ packaging. But by replacing plastic ring carriers and shrink wrap with 100 percent biodegradable or recyclable cardboard, the company will eliminate the equivalent of 40 million plastic bottles worth of waste annually.

Diageo’s announcement promised to roll out the new sustainable beer packs in Ireland by August 2019 and expand to international markets by summer 2020. But some American consumers can already take advantage of the company’s changing direction.

In May, Guinness’ Baltimore-brewed limited release canned multipacks switched to eco-friendly carriers. These carriers are made from compostable waste materials and are themselves fully compostable and biodegradable.

Plastic-Free Corona

If you’re not a Guinness fan, take heart.

Long considered a beer for the beach, Corona was the first beer to be sold in a clear glass bottle. While that packaging innovation was designed to highlight the brew’s clarity, more recent changes have the environment at heart. Through its partnership with Parley for the Oceans, Corona has adopted the A.I.R. strategy to avoid, intercept, and redesign to eliminate plastic pollution.

Corona’s intercept campaigns include attempting to clean 2 million square meters of beach in 23 countries this summer. A promotion in several countries (including the U.S.) will trade three empty PET (#1 plastic) bottles for a bottle of Corona.

Last year, Grupo Modelo, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev and the maker of Corona, ran a pilot program to replace plastic ring carriers with biodegradable ones.

Now, they have taken a different approach to reduce plastic from packaging. Instead of redesigning the secondary packaging, Grupo Modelo chose to redesign the cans themselves. New Corona Fit Packs screw together into stacks of up to 10 cans, eliminating the need for any packaging to hold them together. This is similar to the Carlsberg Group’s new Snap Pack, except that Carlsberg’s cans will rely on an adhesive to join the cans.

See how the Fit Packs fit together in this promotional video:

In a move that could ultimately have more impact than just eliminating their own ring carriers, Grupo Modelo has promised to make its interlocking can designs open source. If they do, any canned beverage company will be able to reduce its impact on the environment without research costs.

Feature image courtesy of DIAGEO

 

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Guinness and Other Brewers Get Greener Packaging

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A new study says meal kits may be greener than a trip to the store

I’ll be the first to admit that I was skeptical of meal kits — you know, those cooking-for-dummies-style food bundles sent to your doorstep. Visually framing the cooking process with single-serving mise-en-place ingredients while touting sustainability seemed, to me, the epitome of greenwashing. But according to a new study, meal kits can let you successfully cook up a deliciously climate-conscious meal.

The first-of-its-kind study released Monday by University of Michigan researchers revealed that after accounting for every step in the process — from the farm to the landfill — home-delivered meal kits are more environmentally friendly than picking up the same ingredients at your local grocery store. Of course, there are some important caveats: Meal kits tend to have a bad environmental rap due to their monumental amount of packaging. But from a carbon emissions perspective, it turns out food waste is an even bigger sin.

“Even though it may seem like that pile of cardboard generated from a Blue Apron or Hello Fresh subscription is incredibly bad for the environment, that extra chicken breast bought from the grocery store that gets freezer-burned and finally gets thrown out is much worse,” said Shellie Miller, senior author of the study, in a press release.

Meal kits have been booming ever since the major players — Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Plated — entered the market in 2012. Dozens of other meal kit companies have cropped up around the country catering to every kind of dietary preference, from vegan to paleo, single serve to family style. Meal kit sales reached $3.1 billion nationwide in 2018 after an annual growth rate of nearly 22 percent, but until now, very little was known about their overall environmental footprint.

According to the study, the average carbon footprint for a meal Blue Apron came to the equivalent of 6.1 kg CO2, about 33 percent lower than the 8.1 kg CO2 footprint for the store-bought version. (Though this shouldn’t be a shocker: Meal kits that either contained red meat or were otherwise associated with large amounts of wasted food were found to have the largest environmental impact.)

“I hadn’t quite realized the amount of environmental impact contributed through the supermarket retail process,” Brent Heard, Ph.D. student and lead study author, told Earther. “That includes foods that become food loss from overstocking or stores culling blemished produce, but also operation of supermarkets.”

Now before you throw out that giant pot of vegetarian chili you made from scratch and look up a meal kit code, keep in mind the study only compared meal kit footprints with grocery store equivalents. Figuring the greenest way to get your grub on is beyond the scope of this particular research paper. But despite their egregious wrapping, it seems that meal kits are doing a better job environment-wise than haters like me initially thought.

So yes — I stand corrected, meal kit companies. Now let’s tackle that wasteful packaging issue, shall we?

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A new study says meal kits may be greener than a trip to the store

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Quote of the Day: Pink Donut Boxes

Mother Jones

From Peter Yen of Santa Ana Packaging, a manufacturer of donut boxes:

Anytime you see a movie or sitcom set in New York and a pink doughnut box appears, you know it obviously took place in L.A.

I did not know that! But it turns out that pink donut and pastry boxes are unique to Southern California.1 Why? Long story short, a Cambodian refugee from the Khmer Rouge became the donut king of Orange County during the 80s before he gambled away his fortune in the 90s. When he was starting out he asked his supplier for a cheaper donut box, and the pink box was born. Click the link for the longer story.

1Are they really? Or have they since spread to the rest of the country? Let us know in comments.

Taken from – 

Quote of the Day: Pink Donut Boxes

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Biopharma Scientific NanoGreens 10, 12.7-Ounce (Packaging May Vary)

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Emerita Pro-Gest Cream, 4 oz. tube (PACKAGING MAY VARY)

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Babyganics Alcohol-Free Foaming Hand Sanitizer, Fragrance Free, On-The-Go, 50 ml (1.69-Ounce) Bottles (Pack of 3), Packaging May Vary

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Green Label Guide: The How2Recycle Label

A package with a How2Recycle Label. Photo: How2Recycle.info

Think every piece of food and product packaging that bears the chasing arrows recycling symbol can be tossed in the blue bin? It’s a common misconception.

While these items are technically recyclable, they may not be accepted in every recycling program. This can cause confusion and frustration among consumers and may even lead some to skip recycling altogether.

For example, a container made from plastic #5 (polypropylene) may bear the chasing arrows symbol no matter where it’s sold — making people believe that they can recycle it, even if their community’s curbside recycling program accepts only PET and HDPE plastics.

To clear up the chasing arrows confusion once and for all, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition — an industry working group dedicated to environmentally friendly packaging — developed its How2Recycle Label, a straightforward label that gives consumers detailed information about the packaging materials and their proper disposal.

A How2Recycle Label includes recycling information for each element of a package. Photo: How2Recycle.info

The How2Recycle Label program finished its soft launch in 2013 and now has more than 20 participating companies and brands. You may have already noticed the label on products from top names like REI, Kellogg’s, Minute Maid and Seventh Generation.

In easy-to-understand language, the label breaks down what material each piece of packaging is made from and how to recycle it. For example, the label for an HDPE plastic pouch identifies the package as a plastic bag and suggests store drop-off locations as the most prevalent recycling solution. It also advises consumers to make sure the bags are clean and dry before recycling.

Labels on packaging with more than one material clearly identify the elements (such as the paper box and plastic overwrap) and provide recycling guidance for each element. Consumers are also directed to How2Recycle.info for more information.

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition hopes to make How2Recycle a nationally harmonized label that enables the industry to clearly convey to consumers how to recycle a package. The coalition set up a How2Join page to recruit more companies and hopes to have the label on the majority of consumer goods by 2016.

From the Vault: Top 10 Green Labels Guide

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Green Label Guide: The How2Recycle Label

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Seventh Generation Powder Laundry Concentrated, Free and Clear, 112-Ounce (Packaging May Vary)

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Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwasher Gel, Lemon Scent, 42-Ounce Bottles, Pack of 6, Packaging May Vary

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Seventh Generation Fabric Softener Sheets, Free and Clear, 80-Count (Pack of 2) Packaging May Vary

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