Bottle Applications The
Bottle Applications The Ritz-Carlton goes Prima Prima Water - wait a minute - bioplastics MAGAZINE reported about Primo Water from Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 2008 and 2009 … but Prima? Well, yes, they have changed their brand to Prima mainly to separate the business and the communication from their 3 and 5 gallon water bottles and water cooler products. So Prima can now focus their brand communication against its very distinct and unique product attribute of the bottle being made from renewable and sustainable plants, (Ingeo PLA), not petroleum like PET, a depleting and non-renewable resource. Success “Our business is growing very nicely, with strong double digit sales increases,“ said Tim Ronan, VP Marketing & Sales at Prima, to bioplastics MAGAZINE. “We have added terrific new retail partners, for instance nationwide 2,200 Kroger stores, 95 Fresh Market stores, 200 Ingles and 350 Wilco/Hess convenience stores.“ Just recently, Prima was named the bottled water of choice for all of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel properties in North America and Caribbean (more details below). In addition to the 16 ounce bottles Prima just introduced a new 20 ounce bottle for the convenience and foodservice channels. As the pricing is very competitive, (e.g. .99 for a 24 pack), consumers don’t have to sacrifice economically to do something good for the environment. End of life Being asked for the end-of-life scenario of Prima PLA bottles, Tim Ronan explained that their focus has always started with the beginning of life; using a natural, sustainable and renewable material; not oil based resins. The options for end of life recovery remain the same. The Prima bottle can be recycled, commercially composted and incinerated. Tim believes that most consumers are using their local recycling systems today but the use or interest in composting continues to grow, especially with colleges, universities and restaurants. Actually, Prima is the only beverage bottle of any kind in the US certified by the Biodegradable Plastics Institute (BPI) as meeting all ASTM guidelines for compostability. All PLA-based bottles can be sorted using NIR (Near-Infrared) equipment. Sorting PLA has been proven on several occasions. As described in bM Issue 04/2009 Prima has taken an extra step of blending a UV detectable, food safe dye into PLA that allows the Prima bottle to actually ‘glow‘ a purple color under a simple low wattage black light. This allows for an economical way to manually sort Prima if a recycler does not have NIR equipment. And then there is BioCor, announced in March with Mike Centers as the Managing Director and a mission to buy both consumer and industrial PLA materials from recyclers and manufacturers. There is a program in place where recyclers can collect and be paid a competitive rate for PLA bottles/ materials. Those collected materials will be sent to a contracted facility that will hydrolyze the materials back to 100% pure lactic acid, which will then be 22 bioplastics MAGAZINE [04/10] Vol. 5
Bottle Applications sold to Natureworks to be made into Ingeo PLA resin. This is a new end of life proof that Ingeo and any PLA material can be returned 100% back to its natural, renewable, sustainable form. In Europe this so called chemical recycling back into lactic acid is offered by Galactic under the brand name Loopla ® Outlook Currently not exporting, Prima is getting requests to export Prima Water to Canada, England, Ireland, Switzerland, Australia, Kuala Lumpur, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand. “We are selling Prima in over 4,500 locations throughout the US in all major channels: grocery, convenience and foodservice,“ as Tim Ronan pointed out. “We continue to expand our distribution, and will have our best year to date in 2010. And we have a great deal of interest from a number of new customers so we anticipate continued strong growth in all channels in 2011 and beyond. Bioresin plastics are now an accepted packaging alternative to oil based packaging by retailers and importantly, consumers.“ The Ritz-Carlton Commitment As part of its commitment to environmental responsibility, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company (part of Marriott International) has taken an important step — the offering of environmentally-friendly Prima PLA water bottles at its North American hotels and select properties in the Caribbean. Noting the waste that is caused by using an estimated five million, 16oz plastic bottles every year at those properties, Simon F. Cooper, president and chief operating officer of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, challenged his team responsible for sustainable programs to find a better solution. After 18 months of research, and working with a variety of vendors, The Ritz-Carlton developed a partnership with Prima to create a co-branded bottle that is rich with sustainability opportunities. The addition of Prima water is expected to transition to all North American and select Caribbean properties within these months. “We believe our guests will be enthusiastic and enthused about this latest initiative from The Ritz-Carlton to do more than just talk about being eco-friendly, but to take concrete action steps that make a real difference,” Cooper concluded. The bottles are given to the guest as complimentary offers for example when their rooms are prepared for the night or when they get their cars back from valet parking. Even organizers of events or meetings can order these bottles for the meeting rooms. For the in-room coffee machines, The Ritz-Carlton would like to have an 8.5 oz bottle, as Denise Naguib, Corporate Director, Environmental Programs at Marriott International explained to bioplastics MAGAZINE. Being asked about the end-of-life options for the PLA bottles at The Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Denise said that all of their hotels are doing one of the following end of life cycle processes: They can work with their local recycling company to collect and sort the PLA from other plastics and the recycling company is then sending the product for example to BioCor for chemical recycling back into lactic acid. Another possibility is for the property to collect the PLA on-property and work with a PLA collector, such as BioCor to send it back for reprocessing. Or, the PLA can be incorporated into their existing commercial composting system where available. In every instance, the properties are encouraged to utilize any method to keep bottles and anything recyclable, out of the landfill. http://primabottle.com http://corporate.ritzcarlton.com bioplastics MAGAZINE [04/10] Vol. 5 23
