You will soon be able to finish a bag of chips and then plant the empty bag in your garden to help fertilize your tomatoes. As with the ColorQube printing technique with Xerox mentioned yesterday, there are a slew of companies striving to come up with the next innovative and eco-friendly product. Frito Lay, owned by Pepsico and maker of Sun Chips brand snacks, has announced it will introduce “the first fully compostable snack chip bag made from plant-based materials” on Earth Day 2010 (April 22nd). The company first publicized the initiative in April of this year and has already started making the transition to a 100 percent compostable bag.

[Starting in April 2009] the outer layer of packaging on 10 ½ oz size SunChips snack bags will be made with a compostable, plant-based renewable material, polylactic acid (PLA). By Earth Day 2010, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay North America division plans to rollout a package for its SunChips snacks where all layers are made from PLA material so the package is 100% compostable. Current snack food packaging has three layers: a printed outer layer with packaging visuals/graphics, an inner layer, which serves as a barrier to maintain the quality and integrity of the product, and a middle layer that joins the other two layers. When the packaging is 100% compostable, it will fully decompose in about 14 weeks when placed in a hot, active compost pile or bin. NatureWorks LLC is providing the PLA, which is trademarked under the Ingeo name.

Innovations like this and compostable Styrofoam are a joy for us to write about here at 2nd Green Revolution. The economic and environmental aspects are finally lining up to where companies see it as another cost advantage to reduce waste, reduce packaging, and use less energy. This modern, ultra-globalized, and extremely competitive business world means companies must do whatever they can to trim costs and market themselves as eco-conscious to a consumer base that increasingly insists on responsible business practices. While the upfront research and development costs may seem prohibitive, making a breakthrough can significantly reduce resources used, energy needed, and materials employed in producing a product. These breakthroughs thereby reduce overall costs and help the bottom line. They also burnish a company’s image, generate hype, and can set them apart as industry leaders of the second green revolution.

- Justin Manger
[image source: mediapost.com]