Sustainability alert: Perrier announces winners of Next Packaging Movement

Perrier, Paris, France, has launched The Next Packaging Movement, a sustainable innovation program to enable leading innovators, experts and changemakers to collaborate around packaging solutions.

With this ambitious project, Perrier says it aims to broaden thinking and deliver actions on the topic of sustainability. According to a company news release, the Next Packaging Movement by Perrier project is designed to expand efforts beyond the development of 100 percent recycled and recyclable packaging. It aims to support innovators and develop solutions that reimagine packaging from sources to end-of-life, with the potential for delivering positive environmental and social impact.

Having announced a call for applications in April 2019, Perrier received approximately 90 submissions from a diverse range of organizations, including Non-governmental organizations, startups and researchers from around the world. The selection process for winning applications was “incredibly competitive,” weighing key factors, such as the breakthrough dimension of the proposed solution, the potential environmental and social benefit and its ability to scale across the sparkling water market and the broader beverage industry.

At the 2020 ChangeNOW summit, Perrier presented the program winners, which will bring their innovative solutions to market by 2025. Each will receive technical, operational and financial support, with up to 1 million euros per project. The winning projects address different aspects of the packaging challenge, ranging from source materials, alternative solutions beyond the bottle and packaging end-of-life. The winners are:

• Biotic: a bio-based and biodegradable plastic, produced from agricultural waste while also creating well-paying jobs for women in Africa where the project is based
• Flexikeg & Perrier: an “ecollaboration” to deliver beverages in an innovative and reusable flexible keg with the aim to reduce plastic waste and carbon emission
• PlastiSkul: micro factories for waste transformation, an integrated approach model mixing low- and high-tech solutions, from waste collection to transformation, that can be implemented in developing countries, with a strong social impact, including an education/training program for local entrepreneurs

“Perrier has always been a brand that keeps pace with the times, evolving with its consumers and innovating while remaining true to its core values,” states Philippe Gallard, international business unit director at Perrier. “This is why we are proud to invest in these three exciting ideas to accelerate their development. We hope that with The Next Packaging Movement by Perrier we can contribute to a more sustainable future, leading through bold actions and bringing to market innovative projects.”

To develop this initiative, Perrier is partnering closely with SoScience, a European-based organization focused on responsible research and innovation. The brand has also created a dedicated task force made up of external leaders in materials sciences, environmentalists, entrepreneurs and changemakers to identify the most promising projects and to mentor the winners. The task force includes notable members, including Jiang Nanqing, secretary-general at China Plastics Reuse and Recycling Association, Philipp Meister, senior director sustainability strategy of Adidas Group.

Waste Management Phoenix Open features Ball Corp.’s aluminum cups

Broomfield, Colorado-based Ball Corp. and Houston-based Waste Management have announced a collaboration to bring Ball’s recyclable aluminum cups to the PGA tour’s 2020 Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Arizona. The event, which convenes more than 700,000 fans over the course of seven days, has long focused on championing sustainability, according to a news release from Ball Corp.

Waste Management, the title sponsor of the Phoenix Open, is adopting the aluminum cups to help forward its mission of creating the largest zero waste sporting event in the world for the eighth consecutive year.

“The Waste Management Phoenix Open is a shining example of how events big and small can make sustainability a core part of their mission,” says John Hayes, Ball’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “We’re proud to join together with Waste Management to bring fans the aluminum cup and help meet their zero waste goal while also expanding the cups to golf fans.”

Waste Management is also hosting the #BinThereDoneThat social media contest, in which fans are encouraged to submit their recycling trick shots via social media for a chance to win a 2021 Waste Management Phoenix Open ticket package.

“We’re excited to team up with Ball to bring the aluminum cup to fans at this year’s Waste Management Phoenix Open,” says Brent Bell, vice president of recycling at Waste Management. “The introduction of the infinitely recyclable aluminum cup will play an important part in helping us educate fans about how to recycle right here at the tournament and when they return to their homes, communities and businesses.”

4ocean expands ocean plastic removal efforts in Central America

Beginning this month, 4ocean, Boca Raton, Florida, will remove plastic pollution from Guatemala’s surrounding ocean and coastlines, notably the Rio Motagua, one of the most polluted rivers in the world. This undertaking marks the first international expansion for the brand since 2018, according to a 4ocean news release.

4ocean’s new Central American headquarters will be located in Puerto Barrios, the largest port in Guatemala. The brand will simultaneously expand cleanup operations and target regions including the Rio Motagua, Amatique Bay and the “Trash Islands,” which the organization describes as approximately 30 miles of floating garbage outside of Roatan.

Upon opening its Central American operations, 4ocean aims to employ more than 20 local workers. The brand will utilize six trash-collecting vessels as well as the 4ocean Mobile Skimmer, an original watercraft designed to remove large quantities of debris in high-density areas. In addition, 4ocean says it will install boom collection systems at large river mouths to minimize the amount of pollution that enters the ocean.

“Expanding our cleanup operations into Central America offers us an opportunity to create significant change in the ocean plastic crisis,” says 4ocean co-founder Alex Schulze. “Our plan is to not only remove millions of pounds of plastic by leveraging innovative cleanup technologies, but to also stop plastic pollution at its source by working with local communities to change plastic consumption habits.”

Tens of millions of pounds of ocean trash is believed to be floating in and along Central America’s ocean and coastlines. Due to minimal infrastructure and multiple river systems flowing from city centers directly into the oceans, Central America is among the top producing regions of ocean plastic pollution, the organization says.

4ocean’s global cleanup efforts are 100 percent funded through the sale of its products. Since its founding in 2017, 4ocean has removed more than seven million pounds of trash from the ocean and coastlines.