Our Plastic Free Tea - how long does it take to produce home compostable packaging?

Any idea just how long does it take to make a home compostable pack?

Years? Months? Weeks? Days?

Let's find out! 

Come with us behind the scenes with Econic , makers of our home compostable plastic free packaging.

Back in March (before the Covid-19 pandemic well and truly hit!) we were lucky enough to visit New Zealand and spend some time with Econic, creators of our plastic free home compostable packaging.

It was so inspiring and humbling to sit with Owen Embling, owner and inventor of this type of plant based plastic free packaging that we use for our tea.

How many years did it take to create the home compostable packaging we use?

Owen says: "This journey started 25 years ago so about 1996 or thereabouts we were making our first starch based product which was plyable and stretchy and no oxygen barrier, no use for food only a containment bag.

From there, customers starting asking for products like chocolate and other food products and so we had to start developing a laminate of this material, cellulose based materials, and corn based materials to build barrier and films into the structure. Slowly but surely what we created was suitable for packing chocolate or tea or other food items that needed to be kept dry.

This particular style of pack, the Econic was primarily developed about 10 years ago"

 

How long does it take to produce a home compostable pack?

Owen says" "A bag like this takes a long time. One because some of the primary raw materials that we have to get to make the product come from all over the world. Some of those have very long lead dates. You're purchasing some of the products for this, it might be 20 weeks away. Because we are here in New Zealand there's a shipping component but even before that the companies that make some components are only making it a few times a year. 

So we've got perhaps a 20 week lead date for some of the primaries, once it gets to New Zealand we have to extrude the film, print the film, glue them together and then pouch make them and all that process can take 3 or 4 weeks. There's a lot of time curing the products so as to make it stable so that it works for the long term and it builds the oxygen barrier so we can have a high oxygen barrier material. So yes anything from 4 to 6 weeks to manufacture this but in essence the journey starts probably 25 weeks prior to that"

We hope this has provided some fascinating information about how much time and effort it takes to produce an eco friendly plastic free packaging option!

To learn more about our packaging click here