Wednesday, April 21, 2010

It's Almost Earth Day, Ready for the Guilt?

It's Almost Earth Day, Ready for the Guilt?

Well, it's almost Earth Day and as any good Earth day goes, it's all about the guilt you feel towards destroying this place we call home. Yes, I'm talking to you. The fine people who shit up this bright green and blue earth that I have all my shit on. Why are you gunking it up? You used to be cool... what happened?

Anyhow, on to the guilt. Let's take a look at the life of a plastic bag...



How about that. Sure seems like it goes a long way to just end up being completely trashed. So how about you do something nice for the environment this year. Say, how about buying water out of a boxed paper carton.

Boxed Water is the latest in water packaging trends from Michigan-based Boxed Water is Better. The company produces well designed milk carton style boxes for its water. The cartons are shipped unfilled and filled on demand as needed dramatically reducing transportation costs and environmental impact.

The boxed water packaging is made from up to 90% renewable resources. It features a solid white carton with the graphic design done in black creating a sharp, highly effective package design that reads "Boxed Water is Better for the Earth."

The company said the concept for the Boxed Water started with the simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand that was more environmentally responsible and gives back a bit - they found that it shouldn't be bottled at all, but instead, boxed. So they looked to the past for inspiration in the century old beverage container and decided to keep things simple, sustainable, and beautiful.

Boxed Water is Better says their carbon footprint is dramatically lower as the boxes are shipped flat to their filler and filled only as demand is created, opposed to most bottled water companies that ship their empty bottles across the globe to be filled, then shipped back for consumption.

As a comparative example the flat, unfilled boxes they can fit on 2 pallets, or roughly 5% of a truckload, would require about 5 truckloads for empty plastic or glass bottles.

Their cartons can also be broken down to their original flat state, are recyclable in most areas, and will be everywhere shortly. We're also giving 20% of our profits back to the resources our product is composed of - water and trees. Not only does it simply make sense, but we really enjoy supporting water and forestation organizations as it's part of our company's ethos and way of thinking to give back and participate. All that and an over-arching focus on simple and beautiful design that compliments our brand as well as the spaces it's sold and consumed in.

I'm one that would suggest that you go out and buy a SIGG water bottle and just use that. You never have to throw anything away nor do you have to even settle for a certain percentage being recyclable. Hey, it's better than plastic bottles. Then again, anything is better than wasteful plastic bottles. Come on, buying a SIGG bottle really is the best thing you can do for the environment if you have water on the go.

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