Adventures in Ethical Consumerism

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Biodegradable bottles

What an excellent development! Biota Spring Water is packaged in a compostable plastic bottle. Unfortunately it's only available in America, for now. From metaefficient.com:

"Biota is the first spring water to be packaged in a compostable bottle. The bottle is made of a corn-based bioplastic, which was exclusively created for Biota by Naturework PLA. The bioplastic is an alternative to PET which is the petroleum-based plastic commonly used to bottle beverages. PET takes about a thousand years to decompose.

The bottle will break down completely in 75-80 days but only when conditions are right. It will not decompose even if you leave the bottle in a hot car for weeks. The decomposition only takes place when exposed to constant heat (120-140°) and humidity. The bottle label is also biodegradeable, but unfortunately the bottle cap is not, although Biota hopes to change that.

Another advantage to the bottle is that it will not leach unhealthy residues into the water, and thus the water never gets a "plasticky" taste to it.

The water itself comes from a spring in Ouray, Colorado. Biota is currently only available in Colorado, California and Nevada. It is priced as a premium spring water."

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