EPI, Totally Degradable Packaging

The most important thing when coming up with degradable packaging is making sure that it’s suitable for the environment it’s within. A big misconception by many is that biodegradable or degradable means “throw in the rubbish bin and you’re doing the environment a favour”.

In most cases however degradable packaging is actually designed to be commercially or domestically “composted” as opposed to being thrown in our landfill. You may be interested to know that almost all landfills in New Zealand don’t actually want degradable product to break down within them as they are designed to be built upon in the future and don’t want the land to subside when this happens. Also many degradable products will actually give off methane when put into a landfill situation which could be considered worse for the environment than simply being recycled. Degradable products are great if commercially composted or even domestically composted, but New Zealand is not yet set up to cope with this kind of packaging and there is no standard here that currently exists. Australia is very close and we are hopeful this will move here, but in the short term it will still only be suitable for domestic composting as far as we can see.

When we looked at some of our packaging why did we then choose the degradable option as opposed to recycling like our bottles?

The products we have chosen to produce in EPI degradable packaging are those like our sugar sachets whereby they are primarily used in cafes or hotels and the chance that they would ever be recycled after being used is virtually zip. Also the technology we have chosen is specifically designed for degrading in landfill and does not give off any methane. Also we believe due to the small nature of something like a sugar sachet, it wont cause any problems with subsidence in landfill when compared to a product like a plastic bottle. We feel this is currently the most environmentally friendly option available as opposed to using standard materials which can't or don't have easy access to recycling and as a consequence will take hundred of years to break down.