Salad greens are now greener
A Hamilton packaging company and Rotorua organic farm have joined forces to try and save the planet, one salad bag at a time.
Lux Organics owner Jenny Lux was looking for a greener solution for her salad bags and after 15 months of research and trials, contacted packaging company Convex to enquire about their moistureresistent compostable packaging.
‘‘Two years ago, when Lux Organics was first sprouted, there was no alternative to using plastic ziplock bags for our produce,’’ Lux said.
‘‘Our whole philosophy is about growing nutritious and organic specialty produce for a range of different people, cafes and restaurants. Using standard plastic packaging goes against everything we stand for, so we’ve worked really hard to identify an alternative option.’’
Convex managing director Owen Embling said they had realised a gap existed in the market for homecompostable packaging, and developed their EcoClear packaging as a result.
He said the bags were made from renewable, GM-free corn.
‘‘The great thing about these bags is that they can break down in a home compost, whereas most compostable packaging is only suitable for commercial composting,’’ said Lux.
She said that at present, just 11 facilities exist in New Zealand that accept packaging materials for commercial composting.
‘‘If more businesses put up their hands and used home-compostable packaging, we would be able to reverse the horrific trend of plastic building up on land and in our oceans,’’ she said.
‘‘It was really important to us that our bags could both keep the product perfectly fresh and also be sustainably disposed of at homes, and we’re loving hearing our customers are composting themselves.’’
Embling said they manufacture EcoClear according to client demand, and ‘‘we’d love to make more’’.
He said the cost comparison against traditional plastic packaging depended on how many layers of film were required, but would generally be around 30 per cent more expensive.
‘‘But what is the cost of a cleaner Earth?’’
He said that at present the product is used by organic food growers, pet food manufacturers and an organic chicken manufacturer.
‘‘We would love for more businesses to take on home-compostable packaging in the very near future,’’ he said.