Eco for Life®
Eco for Life® water bottles are made from Polylactic Acid (PLA)
Eco for Life® water bottles are made from Polylactic Acid (PLA), an annually renewable plant source, rather than from scarce fossil fuels. Eco for Life® bottles can be biodegraded into a product that can be used as a valuable soil supplement.
An important point to make is that the bottles have no label attached, either paper or plastic film. The wording on the bottle is lasered on with high-grade ink made in Japan from plants.
Our product is made from plants
Our product is made 100% from plants which makes it naturally better, it has more end-of-life options than any traditional PET plastic. Eco for Life® bottles produce 60% less greenhouse gases and use 50% less fossil fuels in their production.
Right now…
• Ingeo is made from dextrose (sugar) that is derived from field corn already grown for many industrial & functional end-uses. In North America, corn has been used first because it is the most economically feasible source of plant starches.
• Less than 1/20th of 1% (0.05%) of the annual global corn crop is used today to make PLA for all applications worldwide, so there’s little to no impact on food prices or supply.
• The process does not require corn specifically, only a sugar source is needed. This could also include sugar beets, sugar cane, wheat and more.
In the future…
• Ingeo will be made from cellulosic raw materials, agricultural wastes and non-food plants.
This revolutionary bioplastic is made up of long molecular chains of the polymer polylactide.
It is derived from naturally-occurring plant sugar.
Ingeo is made from dextrose (sugar) that is derived from field corn already grown for many industrial & functional end-uses. In North America, corn has been used first because it is the most economically feasible source of plant starches.
TURNING SUGAR INTO POLYMER
Micro-organisms convert the sugar into lactic acid through fermentation.
Dextrose (Sugar) is created from the harvested plant starch (made during photosynthesis) through a process called hydrolysis.
A 2-step process transforms the lactic acid molecules into rings of lactide.
The lactide ring opens and links together to form a long chain of polylactide polymer. This is the process of polymerization.
A chain of polymer can consist of tens of thousands of units linked together.
Eco for Life® bottles are made from 100% Ingeo PLA grade 2003D.
The Ingeo biopolymer is suitable for food contact applications and has compliance with European regulations as a raw material with 1935/2004/EEC and Regulation 10/2011.
COMPLIANCE TESTING
Eco for Life® bottles have been tested by the Smithers Rapra Group – http://www.smithersrapra.com/
Eco for Life® bottles have undergone composting testing to confirm that the material complies with BS EN ISO14855 (1999) and will shortly be undergoing testing to confirm that the bottles comply with the criteria set out in BS EN 13432 (Packaging – Requirements for packaging recoverable through composting and biodegradation – Test scheme and evaluation criteria for the final acceptance of packaging.) The Ingeo polymer granules from which the bottle is made already have this attestation, and we have commissioned our own testing. Reports already undertaken by Smithers Rapra are attached as is the certification that the bottles are made 100% from Ingeo PLA grade 2003D.
END OF LIFE OPTIONS
Ingeo has more end-of-life options than any traditional plastic. Products made with Ingeo are compatible with existing recycling systems, can be cleanly incinerated, and are completely stable in a landfill – still the unfortunate fate for most of today’s plastics. When thinking about environmental impact, it is important to recognize that true eco-advantage starts at the beginning. By design, using Ingeo results in 75% less greenhouse gases than the oil-based PET plastic it replaces, even if both end up in a landfill.
In-Vessel Composting
Ingeo biopolymer is made primarily of polylactic acid (PLA), a repeating chain of lactic acid, which undergoes a 2-step degradation process. First, the moisture and heat in the compost pile split’s the polymer chains apart, creating smaller polymers, and finally, lactic acid. Micro-organisms in compost and soil consume the smaller polymer fragments and lactic acid as nutrients. Since lactic acid is widely found in nature, a large number of organisms metabolise lactic acid. The end result of composting is carbon dioxide, water and humus, a soil nutrient. This degradation process is temperature and humidity dependent.
Infra Red Sorting
Near Infra-Red sorting is the industry’s preferred plastics sorting technology because it can accurately identity the many different polymers already in use today (different polymers reflect an identifiable light spectrum). Testing on widely-used present-day technology proved that Ingeo can be identified in the mixed waste plastics stream with very high accuracy.
Incineration – Waste to Energy
Another end-of-life option used globally is incineration to produce energy.
Home Compost Heaps
Properly managed home compost heaps operate at a temperature of > 60o C which means that the bottles will biodegrade in a home compost heap under these conditions.
GM MATERIAL
Our bottles are made from non-GM corn, and processing at high temperatures removes any and all traces of GM material, should there be any present. Nobody in the world can say 100% that they can grow corn with a guarantee that there is no GM material mixed in. This is because corn is wind pollinated and there may by pollen from GM crops being grown nearby which is transported on the wind to the non-GM crops from which the plant polymers are made. See statement below –
When pollen is transported by wind, this is called anemophily. Many of the world’s most important crop plants are wind-pollinated. These include wheat, rice, corn, rye, barley, and oats.
Neither our bottle nor our caps contain PET
Julia Bradbury BBC Presenter and Eco for Life
Eco for Life® is a brand owned by:
Marco Polo Intercontinental Ltd
http://www.marcopolointercontinental.com/
For more information or to purchase wholesale, please contact us.
Eco for Life Awarded Best Food/Drink product Award 2016
