Biodegradable Plastic Bottles from ENSO Bottles Awarded GEN Seal of Approval
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Less than 15% of recyclable plastic bottles are recycled. ENSO Bottles help solve the problem.
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Click here for the educational info page on the ENSO website.
ENSO Bottles LLC has been awarded the Green Education Network Seal of Approval because its product makes a needed contribution to the problem of non-recycled plastic, and ENSO has demonstrated a commitment to education. ENSO bottles are 100% biodegradable, decompose in about five years and add little to the cost of a bottled beverage or other product. Like traditional PET bottles, the ENSO bottles also can be recycled along with nonbiodegradable PET bottles without being separated.
PETÂ stands for Polyethylene Terephthalate, a plastic that’s used as a container for water, soft drinks, other foods, and non-food items such as household cleaners. PET containers can be recycled into new bottles and other products, but most of the millions of tons in use each year wind up in landfills, roadsides, rivers, lakes and oceans, where they can take hundreds of years to decompose.
In an effort to help reduce the tons of plastic bottle waste accumulating in our nation’s solid waste facilities, ENSO Bottles™, in partnership with Resilux America and Bio-tec Environmental, is bringing Eco-Pure™ technology to the PET bottle industry through specially formulated additive, preforms and blown bottles. ENSO Bottles™ and Bio-Tec Environmental are both environmental companies with a dedication to providing earth friendly biodegradable plastic solutions, and together, are offering the latest scientific advances to the PET industry.
ENSO bottles are not Oxo-degradable or PLA (corn based) plastics. ENSO bottles are biodegradable in aerobic (compost) and anaerobic (landfill) environments, breaking down through microbial action into biogases and inert humus leaving behind no harmful materials. ENSO bottles are recyclable and can be mixed into the standard PET recycling stream.
Launched in 2008, ENSO Bottles, LLC was created with a vision of bringing environmentally focused solutions to the PET bottling industry. In partnership with Resilux America and Bio-tec Environmental, ENSO Bottles™ is bringing Eco-Pure™ technology to the PET bottle industry through specially formulated additive, preforms and blown bottles.
ENSO CEO Danny Clark told GEN, “Our mission is to develop, promote and bring to market earth friendly plastic PET bottle solutions. We also believe that an important part of our business is to provide education on the topic of biodegradable plastics.”
“We believe in approaching business with an integral perspective in understanding the impact and sustainability of our products. Our long-term goals are to develop renewable and sustainable sources of bioplastics which are derived from non-food feedstocks. Our future products will assist in reducing our dependence on unsustainable resources such as fossil fuels.”
“Our current biodegradable products will greatly assist in reducing plastic bottle pollution in both landfill and ocean environments. Current ENSO Bottles are recyclable with traditional PET. We strongly encourage and assist corporations, municipalities and organizations in creating viable recycling programs. We promote the recapture and use of bio-gasses created from landfills and bioreactor landfills to be used in creation of clean bio-energy.”
“We chose the name, ENSO Bottlesâ„¢ to reflect the concept and life cycle of our products. Our name and logo, ENSO, represents wholeness and the returning to where it initially began. Our bottles reflect this precept, originating from the earth, providing a value of use, and returning to the earth in a reusable organic form.”
California-based Aquamantra water will be the first corporation to use ENSO’s 100% biodegradable bottles, according to an Aquamantra announcement.
The goal, said Aquamantra founder and president Alexandra Teklak, is to cut the amount of non-degradable plastic in landfills, an issue that a number of cities have cited in removing bottled water from government offices.
“I have a love for this planet and a love for humanity,” said Teklak. “I’m just so grateful to be a leader in the solution.”
Teklak said she ruled out bottles made from cornstarch (PLA) because the company needed a bottle that would survive 1-2 years in stores before beginning to degrade. Other possible solutions, such as oxy-degradables require sunlight to breakdown, according to an Aquamantra news release, making it difficult to dispose of them in landfills.
“I just wanted people to know, we really do care,” said Teklak, whose Aquamantra water is sold under four names: I Am Healthy, I Am Loved, I Am Lucky and I Am Grateful. The spring water comes from Palomar Mountain Spring near San Diego, Ca.
Aquamantra is the first company to announce it will use ENSO Bottles, said Clark, but the company already has orders for over 5 billion from other corporations, including non-food suppliers, such as cosmetics firms. Companies either can order complete bottles from ENSO or buy the material to make bottles and form their own.
Within months, consumers should start seeing ENSO bottles in a variety of stores, said Clark.
She said the firms that contributed to creation of the bottles are hoping consumers will see them as an answer to the landfill-clogging problems that go with PET containers and to the health worries associated with [other types of non-PET*] hard plastic bottles that contain Bisphenol A (BPA), a weak estrogenic compound that studies are linking to health problems because it leaches into food or water.
“We’re trying to encompass the entire industry that handles PET packaging,” she said.
One ENSO-related issue is what happens to the methane gas produced when ENSO bottles degrade, said Clark. Methane is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming but it can be captured and used as fuel. “We’re working with landfills to capture the methane,” said Clark.
*ie BPA is not used in PET bottles – GEN Publisher
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Reader Comments
What are the criteria for the award?
How are claims and statements confirmed?
What evidence is there that BPA exists in PET water bottles, as suggested in the article?
Thank you for inquiring David.
Info about GEN’s Seal of Approval may be found by clicking the link on the lower left side of this page.
Our endorsement of ENSO Bottles is based upon the fact their PETs biodegrade in both aerobic and anaerobic (ie landfill) enviroments, and yet can be recycled together with regular PET bottles without need of separation. Further, ENSO itself urges recycling and has demonstrated to GEN’s satisfaction a commitment to education.
To summarize GEN’s own position on plastics:
–Avoid use of plastic altogether when suitable alternatives exist
–Recycle as much plastic as possible
–When plastic is the best option, use that which has the best-available composition from among plastics that are recycled, recyclable, and biodegradable aerobically and/or anaerobically.
GEN tends to emphasize support of biodegradable plastic products because of the low rate of recycling despite best deposit laws, improved collection efforts by dispensers and recyclers, and heightened environmental awareness. Below, however, you will see we do not propose giving up on recycling efforts. On the contrary, you will see we have a specific proposal to intensify them, and we think you should pay attention to it.
Please advise if you speak for the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers, 2000 L Street, Ste 835, Washington, DC, USA. We have read your abstract published online November 7, 2007 and have no issue with it, but recommend you consider updating it to account for recent developments in the realm of biodegradables, recyclable biodegrables in particular.
GEN cannot and does not here attempt to speak for ENSO Bottles, but we are quite certain they would be happy to engage with you if dialogue has not yet been established.
GEN itself would be happy to work with the non-profit APPR fully aware APPR members recycle plastic for profit, and we have a specific idea for something collaborative we could do to make a constructive difference in the interests of APPR members and the public:
PROPOSAL BACKGROUND: Our own community’s waste disposal provider now furnishes a large(68-gallon), and hinge-lidded single-stream recycling container one simply wheels to curbside. A vast improvement over the too-small plastic tray one had to carry to the curb each week. We understand single-stream collection via large, wheeled containers greatly increases the volume of household waste that gets recycled.
Here’s the problem: on the lid one is only told to go to http://www.allwaste.com/singlestream.php to find out what can be recycled. WE ARE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT MOST RESIDENTS DO NOT DO SO, AND ARE UNAWARE OF THE LARGE NUMBER OF ITEMS THAT CAN BE RECYCLED.
GEN believes that recycled volume will LEAP (to the benefit of recycler profits, landfills, the environment and thus the public) if an effective inform-and-educate campaign is undertaken. GEN would like to play a role, and has ideas as to how such a campaign can be conducted cost-effectively.
Further, GEN’s Honorary Adviser — Bob Williamson of Greenhouse Neutral Foundation — has expertise in the area of plastics recycling, among other things having won the environmental initiative award of the International Society of Plastics Engineers in 2006. Bob is co-host of Earth Matters Talk Radio, on which we were a guest this past weekend. The program reaches millions. Perhaps Bob, his Foundation, and/or Earth Matters Radio can help. I will certainly ask him.
David, last for now, the reported “worry” comment you cite did not refer to PET bottles. As to that commenter’s reference to studies giving rise to health “worries” about the leaching of BPA from other types of plastic bottles, we ourselves have “some concern” as a result of the National Toxicology Program report:
“Based on limited and inconclusive evidence from laboratory animal studies, NTP expressed…‘some concern’ regarding effects on the brain, behavior, and the prostate gland. However, NTP further noted that additional research is needed to better understand whether the findings from these studies are of any human health significance.”
Green Education Network will have “some concern” unless and until NTP issues a definitive report expressing “no concern”.
David, I do hope to hear from you via email direct to greghilbert@greeneducationnetwork.com