Once the lining is ripped out, the paper shell can be quickly flattened and recycled up to seven times – plastic bottles can be recycled only once. Alternatively the paper bottle can be turned into compost within a matter of several weeks. The bottle has been trialled at Asda stores in East Anglia and a national roll-out across the supermarket chain will start this week, beginning in Cornwall.
Myerscough dreamt up the idea for Greenbottle after talking to a man in his local pub. "A chap I row with was running the local landfill, so I asked him what was the main problem and he said plastic bottles, especially milk bottles, and that set me thinking." Recalling his son's efforts with papier-mache, Myerscough played around with several designs before coming up with a prototype. Currently 1,000 two-litre bottles are supplied to shops around Suffolk, and Myerscough claims customers have been "overwhelmingly positive".
There are plans to make the next generation of bottles entirely from paper and to sell products to other industries, such as detergent and shampoo manufacturers. Asda's decision to introduce the bottles nationally should help bring costs of production down. "The price is the same as a plastic bottle," Myerscough said. "Our target is to be competitive with plastic bottles." He claims that the production of each GreenBottle has a significantly lower carbon footprint than that of a plastic one, even though the paper cases are currently made in Turkey.
GreenBottle website.
5 comments:
Selling milk in non-recyclable plastic bottles is a terrible idea, anyway. Good for the inventor.
Over here milk comes in one liter cartons. I drink a lot of the stuff and shudder to think how much guilt I would suffer if every time I emptied one I would be sending another plastic bottle to the dump. I'm environmentally conscious like that.
Congratulations -he's just invented the paper milk carton.
Reminds me of the kid who had a great idea for an invention: a cord to tie the phone to the wall so it wouldn't get lost!
You still have the plastic liner to deal with.
I wish milk still came in glass bottles. You can reuse those many times. And glass in a landfill doesn't result in toxins leaching into the environment, either.
Is this any better than tetrapack?
I get it in returnable glass bottles. It tastes way better than in plastic or paper, and it's nice to know the bottles are washed and reused.
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