Larry's coffee beans in biodegradable bag
Hartman -- Packaging Digest, 8/1/2008 2:00:00 AM
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Larry's Beans, a coffee roaster/marketer in Raleigh, NC that buys green coffee beans directly from Fair Trade co-ops, aims to wake up consumers to smell an “awesome-tasting coffee packaged in ways to make the world better.” Exhibited at April's All Things Organic show in Chicago, the organic coffee meets Fair Trade, shade-grown organic standards, according to Larry's, and has a real coffee-house vibe. Packed in the company's new 12-oz and soon-to-be-released 1-lb biodegradable polyethylene/metallocene standup bags that are flexo-printed in eight colors with waterbased inks. Incorporating Green Film™ biodegradable technology from Maverick Enterprises (www.maverickent.net), the new bags were designed by The Change (www.changestrategy.com), and are made and printed by Cadillac Products (www.cadprod.com). The bags contain an additive that Larry's says helps micro-organisms break them down into humus, leaving no harmful residues. Said to biodegrade in about nine months in a compost heap, a landfill or commercial composting facilities, the bags display funky '60s-style graphics that relate to the interesting coffee variety names, including Frank Sumatra, Bean Martin, Costa Little Ricky, Cowboy Blend and El Salvador Dali. All of the bags are printed with copy that reads, “This is a new generation of earth-lovin' bag: It biodegrades in landfills, or it composts in your own backyard (In about 9 months it'll be dirt).” Says founder Larry Larson, “Ultimately, we'd like to look to a truly cradle-to-cradle system, where nothing is thrown away. But in the meantime we're pleased that this is a big step in the right direction.”
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The additive is not cornstarch as you "thought" it might be.How can you make a critism without the facts shows your lack of knowledge of advances in biodegradable plastics.Also, if this was "greenwashing", it would not have passed testing. This film has passed ASTM 5511 with independent lab testing.It can be recyled. With only 8% of plastics being recycled every year, there needed to be a new answer to the landfills filling up with plastics. This film is that new answer to a disposable society who doesn't take the time to recycle like it should.
Leslie Harty - 2008-4-9 22:01:00 EDT -
This is very dangerous in that this is TRULY not biodegradeable. We can't let the general public think that this material biodegrades into "humus"!!!!! Worm droppings?
Come on! Can we in the packaging industry please start being more responsible and quit trying to cash in on the Green Movement!! The "additive" is more than likely cornstarch, which biodegrades, leaving "unrecyclable" bits of polyethylene to sit in the landfill or soil forever. RECYCLE!! Quit spinning the truth!
P. Michael Lawrentz - 2008-12-8 15:28:00 EDT
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