"Eco-Packaging" Finalist: Little Animals
by Sean Fisher, Cincinnati, Ohio on 04. 3.06
Finalist Jasmin Chua sent us something for the little ones as her entry into the contest - Little Animals organic cotton shirts. Described by the website as "tees for little humans", these shirts are uber-green (organic unbleached cotton, made in USA) down to the packaging. According to Jasmin, "They come in packaging made from corn-based plastic, a completely renewable and compostable resource. (You can also, as the website suggests, use the box to rein in rogue crayons.) The tag that comes with the packaging can easily be recycled. Even the ribbon is pretty eco-friendly since I don't know of anyone who doesn't save pieces of ribbon to reuse with other presents--it's one of those gifts that keeps giving."
Why not tie the shirts together with the ribbon and be done with the plastic altogether? Reducing packaging should be viewed as more eco-friendly than unneeded green packaging.
The product appears very eco-friendly, but looking at the packaging only, there is room for improvement.
But why do t-shirts need packaging in the first place?
yes, I'm confused also as to why tshirts need packaging...
I think they rock, and the container is compostable, very nice
The container is only going to biodegrade if the user puts it in their own (or their city's) compost pile. It'll never break down in a landfill - sorry to say, but the conditions just aren't right in a landfill for biodegradation to happen, not completely, anyway.
Do we really think that buyers (or gift recipients) of this product will take the time to compost it, or will they think "Great, it's compostable so it'll break down in the landfill! I'm doing something good for the environment!"
Forget the corn based packaging (PLA). Don't buy into the heavily marketed hype of corn based plastic being environmentally sound. Corn based packaging is a bad idea for many reasons. It is not compostable unless it makes it to a commercial composting site, of which there are few. Otherwise, it ends up in the landfill. If it enters the now functioning recycleability stream of PET plastic, it pollutes it. Non-organic corn is a crop that pollutes big time. It requires huge inputs of petroleum based fertilizers and various ag chemicals that runoff into the water system and continue to pollute downstream. It is a heavily subsidized crop that is reducing our farmlands to monocropping and destroying small family farms that provide diverse crop selection and a healthier environment.