Snack Food Trying To Be A Little Greener

Sun Chips of Frito Lay is making quite the crunch this week.  From Facebook, to twitter, to the Wall Street Journal there is a steady buzz about all the noise that Frito-Lay has been making with their green line of snacks.  Sun Chips is definitely making positive strides toward a greener treat from their packaging to their actual products.

Seven months ago Sun Chips began mass distribution of their products in a newer noisier bag.  The bag is made out of a plant-based material, polylactic acid, and claims to fully decompose in about 14 weeks if put into hot active compost (pretty good compared to the nearly 100 years it takes typical chip bags).  The polymer used to make the bags has a higher “glass transition temperature” which basically means that it’s more brittle than rubbery.

One of the current production plants for Sun Chips has also transitioned to Solar Energy to help lower their environmental impact.  In Modesto, CA 145,000 bags of Sun Chips are produced and ready to ship each and every day.  The plant in Modest is one of eight separate facilities that creates and packages the noisy treats; don’t get too excited because they have a long way to go, but their efforts should be celebrated for now.

Despite their green efforts, they have yet to make the transition to an organic product.  Perhaps that will be their next step.  Don’t let anybody trick you into thinking snacks like this are “healthy,” but Sun Chips are definitely less bad for you than some of their competition.

All-in-all, Frito-Lay is making some great steps in the right direction.  Hopefully people can ignore the noisy bag due to the positive impact that it can make over the alternatives.

For more eco-friendlier products, swing over to Organic Bug for everything from organic gluten free sweet brownie treats to jewelry made out of recycled glass!

Plastiki, please!

So plastic floats, we all know that. Well did we also know that plastic when applied correctly and with the right amount of experts can complete a voyage across the Pacific? Probably not. Take a look at David de Rothschild’s project, Plastiki. The Plastiki is a distinctive, one-of-a-kind 60-foot catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products. The craft was built with many renewable energy systems, including solar panels, wind and trailing propeller turbines, and bicycle generator and was inspired by the cradle to cradle philosophy.

On March 20, 2010, the sailing vessel set off from San Francisco to sail the Pacific. The team plans on landing in Sydney, Australia and is planning to visit sites that are related to environmental importance. The locations all are sites of environmental susceptibility with issues such as global warming, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and marine pollution.

Plastiki arrived in Sydney Harbour at 11.10 am Australia time on July 26, 2010.