Why Recycling is NOT Enough to Solve Plastic Bottle Pollution
The environmental impact that we humans have is very complex. Much of what we do in our daily lives have unintended consequences. There are some that believe plastics need to eliminated from being used. There may be some valid points to their argument however, the alternatives are usually not as environmentally friendly as what we have today. In most cases plastics provide a more environmental and healthy packaging solution than their predecessor. Yes, it is true our abuse of plastics has lead to pollution issues in the oceans, landfills and other areas that we may never be able to fully clean up. Although there are a number of environmental groups, organizations, companies and many individuals who are diligently trying to solve the plastic pollution issue.
ENSO Bottles Customer, Texas Rain Already Pouring in Profit
David Schraub was planning to transition from the semiconductor industry to solar energy when he got what many could call a true brainstorm.
It was 2007 when he noticed a distant storm while driving to Corpus Christi and realized that he could make a business out of capturing rainwater. Last month, his idea evolved into his Smithville-based business, 
Texas Natural Rainwater Harvesting & Bottling LLC, reaching profitability by selling bottled rainwater. More specifically, 60,000 bottles of the product provided by Mother Nature have been sold at dozens of local businesses and organizations since April.
East Valley Tribute.com Interviews ENSO Bottles
For more than a year, the marriage of Danny and Teresa Clark of Mesa was dominated by trying to change the way products are packaged.
“It was 100 percent, 24-hour-a-day thinking,” Teresa Clark said. “We did research to the end of the Internet. There were a lot of sleepless nights, but what kept us going was the passion and drive to know that something had to be done.”
The result is a recyclable, fully biodegradable plastic bottle produced by ENSO Bottles, the Clarks’ Mesa-based company. The bottles — a collaborative effort of chemists, microbiologists and manufacturers, among others — are primarily used by a handful of water companies.
The Clarks hope to expand the bottles’ reach to such products as soda, shampoo, medicine and wine.
“We didn’t invent anything ourselves directly,” Danny Clark said. “We worked with manufacturers and compounders. We were able to tweak it and bring it together to develop a product that is not only recyclable, but breaks down naturally.”
The process of developing organic materials and synthetic polymers to bond with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) — the resin typically used in plastic containers — took about 18 months.
Danny Clark said bottles that use starch-based and oxo-degradable plastic break down in compost environments, but not landfills, where most nonrecycled containers end up.
“It was a lot of trial and error,” Danny Clark said. “We tried this material and that material and ran the biodegration tests. We would do additional research to find compounds to mix together better. The issue was getting the right stuff to mix together from a chemistry perspective. There were dozens of mixtures to go through, and making it biodegradable was probably the easy part. The hard part was getting it to mix with the plastic.”
Among the water companies using ENSO bottles are Balance, Aquamantra, Ecoviva and Project 7.
Martin Chalk, co-founder of Balance Water, said his company spent more than a year looking for a suitable bottle before choosing the ENSO product in November.
The production is still in its infancy, Chalk said, and there are challenges.
“The bottles are clear, but not as clear as regular PET,” Chalk said. “It can vary from batch to batch. You have to get the temperature just right when you blow the bottle forms. It’s still a learning curve, but over time, as biodegradable bottles become more popular, the machinery should be able to cope with it better.
“It’s kind of like a new printing-press process — you have to have a master technician get it just right. Soon, it will become more foolproof.”
A recyclable, biodegradable bottle costs about two cents more to produce.
“There’s more steps,” Teresa Clark said. “But I haven’t heard anyone say they were against paying 90 cents for a better bottle as opposed to 88.”
View original article: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/business/article_1f642176-aa40-11df-941e-001cc4c03286.html
Over 400 Gather to Celebrate Opening of Texas Natural Rainwater Facility
Monday, Aug 4, 2010 Texas Natural Rainwater held the first tri city ribbon cutting ceremony kicking off their facilities grand opening. It was a public display of support for the bottling facility where over 400 gathering to celebrate the opening of Texas Natural Rainwater. The event was a huge success with visitors such as Todd Staples the agriculture commissioner and the district house state representative.
Texas Natural Rainwater is an environmentally focused bottling company. Texas Natural Rainwatercollects and filters local Texas rainwater and bottles it in biodegradable ENSO bottles.
They can be reached for more information about the company at their website www.Texas-Rain.net or call 512-772-1544.
Congratulations to Texas Natural Rainwater and thank you for making a positive difference in the environment!!!
Below are some pictures of the event:
Are ENSO Bottles the Answer to Eliminating Sea Pollution
Recently, ENSO Bottles was asked to address the following questions:
- How do Enso bottle behave in a low temperature marine environment?
- When Enso bottles eventually fragment in the ocean, do they attract POPs in the same way that Petroleum plastics do, posing potential human health threats through the food chain?
- Why has Enso chosen petroluem plastics as opposed to a plant based, biodegradable material?
These questions come up all the time, so we thought we’d post our answers to these questions on our blog. So here it goes…
In any environment where there is a bio-active environment, ENSO bottles will naturally biodegrade. Currently, there is a lot of research going into marine degradation, but there is still a lot of work to do. Marine environments vary drastically from region to region due to various water depths, types of water, etc. Unfortunately, marine environments are more complicated than soil environments.
It’s also, important to understand the type of polymer and how it behaves in marine environments. For example, PET which is used for water, soda, juice and other beverages is a dense polymer and will sink to the bottom. There is very little bioactive environments found directly in marine environments, but at the bottom of those marine environments this is a lot of bio-active, microbial activity. This is where the bottles have the highest opportunity to biodegrade. In reality, we need to keep plastics out of the ocean regardless of the kind. We have dumped garbage into the oceans for decades and are now dealing with those consequences. Biodegradable plastics are better than non-biodegradable plastics, however in our opinion no plastics in marine environments is the solution.
Currently, there are no plant based technologies that make environmental sense. We believe plant based plastics are a good fit for packaging that involves food items, so that there is the highest chance possible for making it into a professional composting environment. Plant based plastics require an initial chemical breakdown before microbes can do the rest. This chemical breakdown happens from the exposure to high temp (140 degrees) for 10 days. If plant based plastics do not make it in such environments they will last just as long as traditional plastics. Most people do not realize this.
Bottles basically have two main disposal paths: recycling or landfills, the third, although small, but important is liter. The technology we utilize allows ENSO bottles to be fully recycled without contaminating the recycle stream, but for those bottles (which are the majority) that end up in bio-active environments, they will naturally biodegrade with the help of microbes. We fully believe that we need to improve recycling so that it becomes the primary solution for plastics. Coke is setting a good direction with using plant material as biochemicals which end up as the same strong polymers we have today, but are from non-fossil fuels. Plant based plastics will last forever in landfills just like standard plastics. They, also do take up farming resources and require A LOT of petroleum resources. Keep in mind that petroleum is also a plant based material. It is fossilize algae that is processed. A true plant based environmental solution will revolve around feedstocks such as algae or waste material from other processes.
In the end, it is extremely tough (close to impossible) to design a plastic that will be perfect to all environments and all disposal methods. We felt that something needed to be done today and the step in the right direction is to integrate into the existing infrastructure of recycling and landfilling. We believe no matter the type of plastic it doesn’t belong in the ocean or other marine environments. The solution that works today is to allow plastics to be recycled, and will naturally biodegrade if placed in bioactive environments. This is the best solution available today until we move away from fossil fuels.
ENSO Bottles is a small company in comparison to the companies producing hundreds of billions of bottles per year. Somebody needed to step up and do something, and not wait until tomorrow or until the perfect solution arrives. We believe we have taken a step in the right direction by doing something now, and will continue our quest in bringing to market the best available technologies which will solve the problem with plastic pollution.
Many thanks,
Danny Clark
Nevada Bottling and Beverage now using ENSO bottles
Special thanks to News 3 in Las Vegas for this great news segment. Check it out:http://www.mynews3.com/story.php?id=17514&n=5035. Did you know that Las Vegas consumes more bottled water than any other city in the United States?
Texas Rain bottles rainwater from Texas in an ENSO bottle
Texas Rain is a local company that bottles and sells Central Texas rain water.
“It’s real rain water, and it’s the solar incentive for Texas,” company spokesperson David Schraub said. “We’re going to be shipping this all over Texas. Right now, we’re in the 15 county regions and we’re moving in the other markets.”
ENSO Bottles donates bottled water to homeless
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 6:22pm
Rotaract is dedicated to making the world a better place, but might see the world from a slightly different perspective than Rotary. Rotaractors are between the ages of 18 and 30, and are typically very early in their careers. Although still fresh to the professional world, they are future leaders in business, politics and the community. Read more
Liquid Promotions goes with ENSO Bottles
Atlanta based, Liquid Promotions, now carries ENSO’s biodegradable bottle. Liquid Promotions can offer your business a wide array of water bottle labels on a classy sleek eco-friendly bottle that contains refreshing spring water from mountains of North Georgia.
Learn more at: http://www.customlabeledbottledwater.com/home
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