We want our consumers and partners to rest assured we’re always working on reducing plastic and improving the way we do business. That’s why in 2024, plastic is on its way out… from our product, from our oceans, and now, from our supply chain.
Since our earliest days, we’ve taken a stand against single-use plastics. First, we designed an alternative to single-use plastic water bottles by introducing a resealable, infinitely recyclable aluminum option. Then, we doubled down on our commitment by partnering with rePurpose Global to remove the equivalent of one plastic bottle from ocean-bound waste for every bottle of Mananalu consumed.
Now, we’re removing plastic from our supply chain. We admit that it took us a few years to get here, and that’s because removing plastic from a supply chain is complicated. But, it’s also really, really important, and we wanted to do it right.
Everything has a cost, and right now our Earth is footing the bill for the global explosion of e-commerce. As an e-commerce business, we embrace the ability to reach customers all over the country, who may not have access to Mananalu in a retail location. We also recognize e-commerce’s impact on the environment, specifically in the form of packaging.
Think about the most recent package you received, and how much of that went directly into the trash. Sure, some of it can be recycled, but the plastic shrink-wrapping your product to protect it from damage? None of that is recyclable.
This means it will go straight into our landfills as a best case scenario. More likely, though, it ends up in our waterways, contributing to the 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic and microplastic that make up our oceans today.
The numbers don’t lie. Packaging plays a significant role in worldwide waste–40% of all plastic produced is for single-use packaging. This amounts to approximately 86 million tons of plastic packaging produced annually, which due to increasing consumer demand, is on the rise. In fact, new research from ING Bank found that packaging for consumer goods in the US is expected to outpace population growth annually until 2025.
It’s for all of these reasons that we committed ourselves to rethinking our supply chain, which currently includes non-recyclable plastic film that is shrink-wrapped over each case of Mananalu and plastic wrap covering pallets during shipping and storage.
By Q2 of 2024, all cases of Mananalu will be plastic free. We’re doing this by replacing the non-recyclable plastic film currently covering each case with recycled corrugated boxes.
Next up is replacing the plastic stretch film used over pallets during shipping and storage. We’re currently prototyping biodegradable pallet wrap–more to come on that!
We originally selected plastic for our supply chain because it’s inexpensive and effective at protecting our bottles from damage during transport. It’s for these exact reasons that removing plastic is hard.
For us, removing plastic from our supply chain involved rethinking our packaging and taking on further costs, but we also got to embrace recyclable materials, minimize material use, and introduce biodegradable materials…all of which furthers our ultimate goal to unplastic our planet.
We’re proud of the progress we’ve made and where we’re going. To learn more about how Mananalu is taking action on plastic, check-out our 2023 Disruption Report.