Ecologic Brands wins Greener Package Award for cardboard bottle

The Greener Package Awards, which honor innovations in sustainable packaging, has recognized California-based Ecologic Brands with its 2011 Environmental Impact Award.  According to Greener Package, this year's honors were bestowed exclusively to products that made quantifiable improvements in sustainable packaging that could be substantiated. Ecologic's award was given in the Non FDA-regulated Products category.

Ecologic Brands' new cardboard bottle was introduced in March 2011 with the launch of Seventh Generation's new Natural 4x Laundry Detergent. The detergent is now the third best-selling laundry detergent in its category of 150 SKUs.

The bottle's innovation comes from combining a molded-paper outer shell made from 70 percent recycled cardboard boxes and 30 percent newspapers. It has been certified by Soil Control Labs to be compostable per ASTM 6868 standards. Additionally, its thin interior liner uses up to 75 percent less plastic than other rigid plastic containers.

The package also offers greater carbon savings because its outer shells are tightly nested and transported flat.  One truckload of Ecologic Brands' packaging materials is said to be equivalent in volume to up to nine truckloads of rigid plastic containers.

Company founder and CEO Julie Corbett said: ‘It took three years to create an entirely new bottle that would make real environmental change. Seventh Generation was the perfect partner to make this bottle a reality.  Creating change is always challenging, but this prestigious award affirms that this is the future of packaging.’

Greener Package Awards judge Jack DiMartino of Stonyfield Farms said: ‘I love everything about this project; the amount of thought and consideration for its consumers and the environment puts Seventh Generation on a different level for sustainable packaging.’

Ecologic is working with many large brands to create custom bottles for liquids, dry ingredients, consumables and non-consumable product categories.

Since its introduction, Ecologic Brands has racked up a number of innovation awards, including the San Francisco Business Times Cleantech Sustainable Awards 2011 for ‘Best Sustainable Product’; The International Business Forum's Social Impact Award for 2011, and was finalist in the PMMI (Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute) ‘Package of the Future’ competition in 2010.