Break it down

By Lauren Bartlett, October 10, 2007 @ 10:28 am

Water is good for you—but water bottles are bad for dolphins, endangered birds and cute puppies. The bottles thrown away today in New Zealand will take around 1,000 years to decompose.

Unless they’re Good bottles. Good water bottles are made from a biopolymer vegetable starch and are completely recyclable, right down to the label. In fact, they’re so eco-friendly that Good has won over the Sir Peter Blake Trust, making this the first and only product that the trust endorses. And some of the profits will go towards educating kids about the environment. Awww.

If a Good water bottle should make its way to the ocean, it takes around 12 years to fully decompose, says CEO Grant Hall. However, it’s also easier to recycle—most bottles sold on the local market can’t be recycled in a commercially viable manner, he says, but the Good bottle could be recycled in 80 days. “It’s really a chicken and egg situation,” says Hall. “The more people that choose to buy recyclable products the easier it is to begin recycling them. It’s not just a case of us making these bottles; it’s about leadership and sharing this knowledge with other companies to make sustainable, recyclable packaging.” Good stuff.