This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Simonetta Freelance, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy (see proformagreen.com). John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.
Huffermen has now introduced two sizes of sports bottles which they claim will biodegrade in 1 – 5 years in a managed landfill. The 20oz ECO20 and 28oz ECO28 bottles are made of HDPE. They contain an additive to the resin that makes them biodegradable in a normal landfill situation. The cap is also biodegradable.
(Do not confuse with Evolve line from Norwood, these are different in use and manufacture.)
According to Huffermen the e volve™ bottles biodegradable material works by encouraging and supporting the bacteria present in all plastics when these products naturally biodegrade “to convert those base materials of the plastic into a food source for microbes, with no harmful or toxic residue”.
The main points are;
- Products are not starch based – i.e not corn or potato plastic
- Contain no environmentally harmful chemical or metal catalyzing agents which start breaking down from the day of manufacture (like normal plastics)
- Finished products are not affected by heat, sunlight or moisture
- Made in United States
- Made from FDA recognized materials
- Are Prop 65 compliant
Both are made with a biodegradable material that helps their polymers and other selected materials biodegrade within 1-5 years. Normally there is no effect to the e volve™ product appearance or physical performance, whether the product is designed to last 1 day or 20 years. e volve™ is made only from FDA recognized materials and regulated processes, which consists of organic and other materials.
Huffermen does say that the level of biodegradability is dependent on the characteristics used to produce the final product and packaging along with how they are disposed and reiterate that “all e volve™ products and packaging should be disposed of in a certified government landfill to properly biodegrade”.
Form more information on these bottles visit the Huffermen website or email us at info@proformagreen.com.
Adventures in Green Marketing 
Plastic bottles are a growing problem in our landfills and oceans. We felt that something needed to be done……and now.
We felt that plastics made from crops that could be producing food, wasn’t the answer. Many reports indicate that in addition to causing our food process to rise, the equipment and chemicals used to produce food based bio-fuel may be increasing pollution.
We knew that there wasn’t going to be one “fix it all” answer and began to wonder if anything was ever going to be done. The problem was growing every day, more bottles were being manufactured and more bottles were accumulating in places where we didn’t need them.
We were wondering if “Earth Friendly Bottles” would ever be available?
That’s why we decided to do our part and started ENSO Bottles. We are partnering with other companies to offer a PET plastic bottle that will biodegrade, compost or recycle.
Our bottles can be produced in a clear or colored version, however, clear version isn’t quite as clear as current PET plastic bottles but then again that’s one way to identify our earth friendly bottle.
ENSO is trying to achieve sustainability with our plastic bottles. Our goal is to make bottles that won’t have the adverse impact on our environment and are made from non food bio-fuels.
We haven’t started making them from bio-fuel but that’s high on our agenda and hopefully will be something we can offer in the future.
But for now, we offer a plastic bottle that is earth friendly…it’s just one step but if we all take just one step toward improving our planet….we will make a difference.