More recently, a large outdoor weekend event in New York City used the biodegradable water bottles (without plant-based caps) in the summer of 2018. And several major events in the USA followed. Bottle, cap, and the label must all be plant-based plastic to ensure that the waste-stream can be properly processed in different “end-of-life” environments.
With a petroleum plastic cap, two end-of-life streams are needed. The bottle composts well, but the cap and the ring around the neck of the bottle remain in the compost because they do not compost. The result is – a polluted compost with fossil plastic parts.
When burning our bottle, no harmful substances are released, but with the fossil plastic cap, that statement cannot be made. Resulting in a toxic smoke and residue of the burned material.
Also with recycling, the PLA recycle stream would be contaminated, if the tamper-evident band comes from petroleum.
All in all, it was time we started developing a 100% plant-based compostable cap. It took almost five years of trial and error to develop a compostable closure. And now our biodegradable water bottles, cap, and label are finally 100% plant-based. A product that can be processed in recycling, compost installations, boilers, and/or possibly digested in a digester that has been in continued research and development for almost a decade.
At the moment, our PCO1810 preform and closure is ready for mass production. This 23.5-gram preform with a 28mm neck has a light blue color and is suitable for 500 ml. bottles. Larger preform sizes for 1 and 1,5-liter bottles will be produced in 2022.
In 2021, we will also start producing other preforms to meet all bottling needs. The speed of that development will depend on the demand from the market and the bottlers who choose to join us. Of course, in addition to the different neck shapes, we will also produce different sizes of preforms. This allows compostable water bottles from 0.33ml to 1.5 liters or larger to be blown with our plant-based preform.
We want to ensure that our bottles are always placed in venues where the correct end of life solution can occur. That is why we have chosen to only use our plant-based bottles in closed-loop locations. Our goal is to collect 90% of our bottles 90% of the time in order to process them properly in the correct end-of-life stream.
We see that it is difficult to create a good end of life for plant-based bottles in normal retail. In normal retail, PET bottles are usually recycled separately or sorted out among the household waste. A PLA recycle flow in normal household waste has not yet been developed in most countries of the world, because the amount of PLA waste is still too small to be a factor to be dealt with.
Within industrial composting, there is still a lot of uncertainty because there have been almost no bottles that have carried a compostable closure—until now. There is a lot of miscommunication about how to deal with plant-based packaging in the waste stream and some people think that every plant-based packaging simply composts in the wild. This is incorrect, there are different plant-based packaging and they do not compost the same. There are those that can compost in the wild and in water and some only compost in special circumstances such as in an industrial composting facilities. In the case of our compostable water bottles, they compost in an industrial composting facility and multiple other options as well.
Because of all these points above, we, therefore, choose not to sell our biodegradable water bottles with water in normal retail, but only in closed-loop venues. If you are interested in switching with your company or brand to a more sustainable bottle for water, please contact us. We are happy to look at the possibilities of how we can use our water bottles in a closed loop to make your company come into the 21st century of environmental awareness.
Why do we still make bottles from oil? Fossil plastic bottles create a large CO2 footprint, create microplastics, and will never leave the earth – so they eventually end up in landfills or littered in the environment. Let’s make bottles a different way — with plant-based material that has multiple end-of-life options.
We distribute our plant-based biodegradable water bottles only within “closed-loop” venues, whereby used containers are collected on-site and undergo proper end-of-life processing. Our goal is to get 90% of the PLA bottles back after use, 90% of the time. Collecting the bottles and send them to the right end of life option. We, therefore, look at closed loop locations for our products.
A lot of locations can be set up as a close loop location. Some are better equipped than others to become a fully closed loop for our bottles. Ideal locations for a closed-loop are catering companies, events, restaurants, cruise lines, hospitals, airports, airlines.
Our PLA bottles have multiple end of life solutions. Every end of life has its own benefits and together with our clients, we decide per location the best end of life solution. We monitor the outcome of the collection and will support getting the highest returns of our plant-based bottles of water.
Does your company need to lower CO2, create a circular environment, lower costs for waste pickup and become single-use plastic free? We supply a full package to create all of this in a closed-loop situation.
With a combination of our unique bio plastic products, other compostable products and our special digester machines we can create this solution for your location. Our digester will compost all bio-plastics and all food waste within 24/48 hours into liquid compost that can be stored and sprayed over the land or transported into the sewage system if needed. This way locations all over the world can be made more environmentally friendly without the need for an external waste facility.
With our solution you can create your own closed-loop location.
