What's already out there?

Tom's of Maine

Tom's of Maine is a company that supplies oral and personal care products. Maine farms a great amount of potatoes and so what Tom's of Maine is doing is looking into packaging their products using a Bio-plastic that they are attempting to create from using PLA (Polylactic Acid) combined with potatoes that are not sold for consumption. This is a great idea because if this plan works out, Tom's of Maine would be using local resources for it's packaging resulting in less energy needed to transport the potato Bio-plastic to the packing warehouse.

Method

Method is a company that produces sanitary products and has actively put in a serious amount of effort to do its part for the environment. The ocean is one of the biggest casualties of plastic pollution and so what Method have done is organised their team of employees, along with local activists, to sweep the beaches of Hawaii and collect washed up plastic that has polluted the ocean. 

Working with Envision Plastics, the collected plastic waste is then ground down to a grey resin and combined along with other recycled plastic waste which creates a blend that can be reshaped into new soap bottles ready for sale. 

Greenbox Pizza Box

The pizza box packaging is a great innovative design that takes into consideration the material used, practicality of use, the re-use and the disposal. The Greenbox Pizza Box is made from recycled cardboard and is the same shape and size as your conventional pizza box, only with a few extra details. The box lid has perforations that when torn provides the consumer four sections that act as serving plates for the pizza. The rest of the box folds into a smaller box that acts as storage for leftover pizza, fitting into any size fridge/freezer. after the box has served it's purpose the cardboard is 100% compostable, releasing all the resources that made up the box back to the earth and improving the quality of the soil.

in.gredients

in.gredients have become the first package free and zero waste grocery store in the US ...And obviously  this is not going to work for a paint company because there is only so much paint that a person needs, whereas people will need to continually buy food, but it shows a great concept for refilling already used consumer packaging resulting in total sustainability.


Bamboo Bottle Company

The Bamboo Bottle Company have produced a bottle that instead of using plastic uses a glass inner container for the liquid and a bamboo outer shell for protection. The different parts are also held together with a #4 PP plastic components on the ends. Bamboo is a great material as it is strong, protective and most importantly grown from the earth and so of course is disposable back to the earth.

http://www.sustainableisgood.com

What is compostable?

Can I Compost it?

Mushroom Materials

Ecovative is a manufacturer of natural packaging materials made from using mycelium, which is the root structure of mushrooms, and an agricultural bi-product such as corn stalk. Combining these together creates a matrix, which when placed into the mould and left for a few days in a dark will grow self assembling into a solid mass. The growth process is ceased by removing the material from the mould and placing into a heat container, which now makes the mushroom material ready to use. The mushroom material is also 100% compostable and so once the packaging has been used it can be broken down and thrown onto any earth, returning to where it once came replacing all the natural qualities back into the earth.
Ecovative is also able to fine tune the mushroom material to allow the product to be; water absorbent, impact absorbent, flame retardant, vapour retardant, variable density, dielectric, buoyant and much more. Ecovative says that they are cost competitive and that mushroom packaging provides the same standard of protective performance as conventional plastic packaging.

Edward Bulmer Pots of Paint

http://www.edwardbulmer.co.uk/default.aspx?ID=08b19916-eee2-4f0f-a593-9c9286b8eaf5

Bioplastics

Bioplactics are derived from forms of renewable biomass sources such as vegetable fats and oils, starch or microbiota. The beauty of Bioplastic is that it is biodegradable which is a fancy word for being able to add into a compost heap and allowing it to break down in either anaerobic or aerobic environments, releasing its natural make-up back to the earth.

This chart shows the differences in time scale that different materials take to degrade and what the organic make-up of the material is.

The materials that take the longest to degrade are common plastics and glass, which can take from 100 years to over 1000 years to degrade.

What Biodegradable plastic is, is it has been treated perhaps with synthetic polymers which allows them to be easily degraded by micro-organisms and return to nature; but there are a few different options other that synthetic polymers that allow for this to happen.

Application of Bioplastics

Fields of application for bio-plastic materials and products are increasingly steadily. Today, bio-plastics can be found mainly within the following market segmants:

• Packaging
• Food-services
• Agriculture/horticulture
• Consumer electronics
• Automotive
• Consumer goods and household appliances

But there are a lot more markets starting to use bio-plastic materials such as building and construction, household, leisure, or fibre applications (clothing, upholstery).

Products that show vast growth rates are among others bags, catering products, mulching films or food/beverage packaging.

http://eu.european-bioplastics.org/market/applications/

Organic Valley Packaging

Organic Valley Video

PIP Packaging

The Juice brand PIP has been redesigned by design agency, Identica, and is now using a Tetra-Pak carton packaging solution.

Tetra-Pak packaging is a great packaging solution because it uses 70% of it's materials from renuable sources and is working towards 100%.

The production of Tetra-Pak is also to a high standard making all the factory machinery as environmentally friendly as possible.

'Our components, modules and production lines are designed to minimize product losses as well as the use of water, energy and other recourses. We deliver plants with guaranteed performance - guarantees that also cover the promises we make on saving resources.

We can demonstrate that our customers can cut costs and increase profitability while at the same time reducing environmental impact. So it's really all about providing more sustainable business with efficient food processing solutions.'
-http://www.tetrapak.com/uk/environment/envprocessing

Jordans Packaging

Jordans is a UK based cereal company and they have  become the first to use completely bio-based packaging for their products. The packaging is produced by a Dublin based company called Alcan.

The new bio-based packaging solution is made from two films, a cellulose film from Innovia and a corn starch-based film from Novamont.

The following is some information sourced from the Innovia website which goes into detail on who they are and what the cellulose film that they supply to Jordans is.

'Innovia Films is a leading global manufacturer of two ‘families’ of speciality products supplied into the packaging, labels, tobacco overwrap and securities markets - Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP) and Cellulose based films.'

'Cellulose film begins life as a natural product - wood.  This raw material is sourced exclusively from plantations operating FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) principles or similar and our suppliers confirm with the environmental standard ISO 14000.

The process of converting wood pulp to film is, however, quite complex. First it undergoes a series of chemical processes to break the pulp down to a viscose liquid. This liquid is filtered and refiltered in order to minimise waste and maximise the purity of the material to ensure the best film quality possible.
 

The viscose is extruded and then cast along a series of rollers and baths, during which the film is cleaned and softened in order to ensure the right optical and mechanical properties for our customers' applications. Investment aimed at modernising the companies manufacturing practices has ensured the installation of state-of-the-art gas recovery systems. The waste gases collected are separated and reintroduced into the process as part of a closed loop re-cycling system.

Innovia Films has two processes for adding colour to cellulose film. Dye-bath technology is used when both colour and transparency are required. Alternatively pigment colour is added at the beginning of the casting process to produce speciality colours.

Un-coated cellulose films are highly permeable to water vapour whilst still providing an excellent barrier to micro-bacteria, flavours and aromas. They are naturally glossy, anti-static, provide excellent dead-fold characteristics and are receptive to printing inks. All cellulose film is heat-resistant. 

Many grades of film are, however, coated, in order to refine and control these natural attributes for specific applications and for moisture barrier.'

-http://www.innoviafilms.com/About.aspx

I struggled to find Novamont at first but discovered that it trades under the name Mater-Bi and managed to discover the website this way.

This is what I found on the websites home page:

'What’s Mater-Bi®

Under the brand name Mater-Bi® Novamont produces and markets a broad family of innovative bioplastics obtained thanks to proprietary technologies in the field of starch, cellulose, vegetable oils and their combinations.

Bioplastics are materials whose properties and characteristics of use are very similar to those of traditional plastics, but at the same time, they are biodegradable and compostable according to the European standard UNI EN 13432, the most important reference for the technical material manufacturers, public authorities, composters, certifiers and consumers.

Due to the characteristics of biodegradability and compostability, Mater-Bi® products allow to optimize waste collection and management, to reduce environmental impact and to contribute to the development of virtuous systems with significant advantages along all the production-consumption-disposal cycle. 

Characteristics

Mater-Bi® biopolymers can be classified according different typologies or “grades”.
The vegetable components are of various kinds (cellulose, glycerin, natural fillers and non-genetically modified starch obtained from various crops) and are all extracted from plantations that do not exploit virgin or deforested land.
For example, corn starch, traditionally one of the first plant components to be used in Mater-Bi®, is a substance that has been widely used for decades as an industrial additive to produce a large number of products such as paper. The corn used is not genetically modified and is grown in Europe following the usual agronomic practices adopted by European farms. It is extracted directly from the grains and subjected to physical changes designed to maintain its natural characteristics. This makes the process efficient, reducing the use of resources to a minimum.
The grades of Mater-Bi® containing starch are covered by a wide range of patents and present highly diversified structures in which the starch either forms a complex with the other polymer components or presents a very fine dispersed morphology, which makes the products particularly tough.

Other grades of Mater-Bi® do not contain starch but simply biodegradable polymers produced using raw materials coming from renewable sources or fossil-derived raw materials. The substances obtained from fossil resources are only used when their renewable equivalents are not available on an industrial level. Vegetable oils used as a raw material for polymers come from non-genetically modified crops (no use is made of palm oil or soybean oil).

One of the components involved in the process of realization of Mater-Bi® are Origo-Bi®, the family of polyesters obtained from vegetable oils through a Novamont technology. Origo-Bi ® help to improve the technical, economic and environmental impacts of Mater-Bi® and toincrease the range of properties.

Properties

The properties of Mater-Bi® grades vary considerably. As regards their mechanical properties, the products range from those with a low modulus and extremely high toughness to stiff products that tend to be brittle. As for their transparency, the products range from lactescent to transparent. All commercial grades may be transformed using blow moulding, casting, extrusion/thermoforming and injection moulding machines for traditional plastics.

With regard to their biodegradability, the commercial products are all certified in accordance with the European and international standards by accredited Certifying Authorities that guarantee biodegradation in various disposal environments. Mater-Bi® waste may therefore be recovered through “biological recycling” (that is, composting and anaerobic digestion) together with kitchen and garden waste. Biodegradation in household compost and soil is also guaranteed for many grades. The biodegradability of the waste can certainly not be taken as an excuse for dumping it in a wood or the sea but, if an accidental spillage takes place, Mater-Bi® will undergo biodegradation even in the marine environment.

Environmental profile

The environmental profile of Mater-Bi® grades is evolving continuously, in line with the development of the Novamont biorefinery model, which is based on continuous integration with the upstream agricultural production stage. Second-generation products integrating starch technology with plant derived polyester technology are currently available on the market.

The products and processes are constantly improved using the “Life Cycle Assessment” (LCA) approach. The year 2014 will see the launch of third and fourth generation products that integrate the chemicals produced by the new joint ventures of Novamont in the fields of green chemistry (Matrica) and biotechnology (Mater-Biotech) and that will further reduce the environmental impact of Mater-Bi®.

All grades of Mater-Bi® realize their full environmental potential when they are used in applications in which their peculiar performance brings advantages to the system both during their use and at the end of their life. In this sense, rather than being considered a simple replacement for traditional plastics, this class of products should be seen as an opportunity to redesign the entire system, focusing attention on the efficient use and recovery of the resources.'
-http://www.novamont.com/default.asp?id=504

CAT Vist 2013

This building is the main reception at CAT, and it is built using stone and timber. In the talk with Jo Gwillim, he pointed out that the reception had been built using timber that was not dried out first as this was a energy saving process, but it proved to be a costly mistake as the wood changed shape over time as it dried naturally and caused the ceiling inside the reception to crack and so work on this had to be done so that it was safe. Jo mentioned that it is all about trial and error when finding what is sustainable, learning from mistakes.

This little green house was interesting as it formed a type of dome that resembled the protective o-zone layer that is way up in our atmosphere that is is thinning and allowing stronger waves of sunlight to enter and rebound causing a temperature rise. This greenhouse had plains of glass missing and so allowed sunlight to pass through and bounce around inside until it escaped making it warm.

This board explains how solar power solutions can save gas emissions that would have otherwise been used in heating from boiler systems etc. 

This counter shows the records of this singular solar roof panel at CAT. The top figure displays the current amount of power in watts being generated from the solar panel. The middle figure displays how much energy that has been generated from the panel since October 2006. And the bottom figure displays a weight of how much greenhouse emissions have been saved since.

In the talk, Jo Gwillim provided us with samples of insulators that could be used and it was our groups task to link the different materials to the name and on a scale of how good they are at insulation.

In the presentation with Jo, he showed us a short animated film that shows optimistically how sustainability can make the planet green greener again.
Home Sweet home by Anita Sancha

These are some notes I made from listening to Jo's lecture:

99% of materials US citizens use are thrown away within 6 months.

350 bits per million of Carbon is the target safe zone (only a 2 degree temperature rise) (at the moment we are at 390 bits per million)

Sustainability is something that goes on forever not something that is just temporary.

Look at the Bristol green land ice cap sea level

Look at WWF Eco report

Look at The Happy Planet Report