The world is divided into those who strive to live a healthy, eco-friendly life, and those who just don’t care. In your every day live you’d be surprised to know how much plastic you consume; water and juice bottles, the packaging that keeps your produce fresh, the carrier bags, and the little “spoons” used to stir your coffee. Most people are unaware of the devastating effect they have on the environment just by being oblivious.
But there are those out there who work towards a greener world, who put their expertise and passion to use in coming up with environmentally-friendly products and ways of living. And that’s exactly what Martin Myerscough, English inventor, has done. He designed a milk carton that might save tonnes of plastic going straight to the dump.
TreeHugger.com reports that a plastic bottle can take over five hundred years to decompose, but hopefully Myerscough’s new paper-mache milk carton will alleviate the rubbish dumps, even if it’s just a little.
The bottle itself looks like any other professionally produced product-packaging with smooth edges and an aesthetic design. It is made out of paper-mache and has a recycled plastic lining on the inside which helps keep the milk fresh. The green bottle can be recycled; the exterior is biodegradable and compostable, while the inner plastic can be recycled with all other recyclable plastics.
Judy Molland of the Care2 website reports that in an independent analysis of the green bottle’s lifecycle it was determined that the wonder packaging has a 48 percent lower carbon footprint than most average milk bottles. And people seem to love the idea. A local dairy in Suffolk, Marybelle, decided to take on the eco-friendly containers. The director of the farm, James Strachan, told the Daily Mail that the “GreenBottle system is the single biggest leap forward in dairy manufacturing technology in years.”
And the popular shopping chain Asda decided to take on 250 units which they sold out every day. It’s great to see a company, big or small, strive to support such a green venture, and even better when it becomes so successful so quickly.
The cartons are currently made in Turkey which is not ideal as the fuel used to export the materials and then import the final product is a problem. However the idea is a novel yet legitimate one.
Care2’s Molland also points out an interesting perspective; a green packaging system is a great idea, but recycling is still an energy-intensive, what about the older system of using glass bottles? The GreenBottle is a wonderful display of an individual’s passion about saving the planet one bit at a time, but perhaps the milkman of years ago had a point.
Jade Scully is a copywriter excited about writing copy and stories, blogging about the world and editing. She currently and regularly publishes her stories on a number of blogs. Jade loves animals and hopes to begin writing copy for the animal rescue charity TEARS as her contribution to the cause.
