You may have seen resealable pouches lining the shelves of health food shops, supermarkets, and other online supplement companies, encasing everything from wholefoods to washing detergent. Resealable pouches have entered the zeitgeist in full force recently, with many consumers believing it’s the ‘greener’ option when it comes to packaging. In truth, though, resealable pouches are far from this. So, we’ve decided to buck this trend and stick with traditional plastic pots to package our supplements.
Resealable packaging may be a convenient, visually appealing, and ostensibly ‘green’ option (especially since it bears the often-misleading ‘Green Dot’, which resembles a recycling symbol), but it comes with one major shortcoming: you can’t recycle it. You see, resealable packaging is comprised of several layers of different materials, with a thin layer of aluminum sandwiched in between. While the aluminum prevents a significant amount of oxygen, moisture and UV rays from penetrating the product – preserving smell and flavor – any recycling facility would struggle to pull those layers apart or even melt them down.
Despite this, efforts are being made to create recyclable pouches. However, those currently on the market aren’t as proficient at preventing oxygen from infiltrating as those made from multiple plastics and aluminum. And this can lead to goods spoiling, which is a significant drawback for manufacturers. Consequently, unrecyclable plastic pouches continue to be used – and billions are sent straight to landfill every year. To this, we say: what a load of rubbish.
With all that in mind, we’ve decided to stick with our traditional high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pots to package our supplements. Unlike resealable pouches, these plastic pots are made from one of the easiest plastic polymers to recycle. Most recycling facilities will collect HDPE to process, shred, and melt down into pellets for further manufacturing. Recycled HDPE can be used to make a host of new products, such as toys, ropes, rubbish bins, and piping.
Environmental considerations aside, HDPE pots offer greater assurance of safety, stability, and freshness, too. Like food, our products require optimal conditions to guarantee their quality and longevity. Above all else, moisture, oxygen, and light conspire to spoil our supplements the most. And while resealable packaging does, admittedly, offer some protection against such environmental factors, there are concerns over the extent of this. We believe our plastic pots act as a superior barrier to oxygen and moisture, as there’s no guarantee resealable pouches are 100% airtight. Our pots come with the added bonus of being opaque, too, which, again, can’t always be said of resealable pouches. The result is better protection for our supplements from harmful UV rays.
Thanks to years of experience and extensive testing, our HDPE pots can give our products a shelf-life of 12 months, from date of opening. We also take a number of measures to ensure our supplements meet their ‘best before date’. Besides being made from scratch in the UK and meeting GMP pharmaceutical standards, we strive to package our tablets and capsules as soon as they’re manufactured. And if a product is especially vulnerable to moisture, we always use smaller pots.
To get the most out of our products, we advise customers to do the following:
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Always store supplements in a cool, dry place – preferably somewhere dark
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Don’t use wet hands when removing the tablets from their pots
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Once open, use continuously until finished
Please note our whey protein range is contained in resealable pouches as this packaging lends itself best to the specific powders of these products.
Bibliography:
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Webster, B. (2019). Billions of food pouches go to landfill. Thetimes.co.uk. Available online: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/billions-of-food-pouches-go-to-landfill-c7hf6lwc6 [Accessed 24 Jan. 2019].
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Bpf.co.uk. (2019). Plastic Packaging and the Environment. Available online: http://www.bpf.co.uk/packaging/environment.aspx [Accessed 24 Jan. 2019].
