Bacardí Scales Biodegradable Bottle

Bacardí is also developing a “sustainably sourced paper bottle.” By integrating the Nodax PHA polymer, Bacardí says this alternative solution will have equally strong environmental credentials while ensuring the quality and taste of the spirit inside a bottle made of paper is as exceptional as one made of glass.

As with other investigations of microplastics in marine environments, the CSIRO research’s primary interest was determining the volume of materials present rather than their origins. Few studies have conclusively identified how microplastics travel to the bottom of the ocean. Or where, specifically, they come from. “Larger pieces of plastic that get broken down to smaller pieces can sink to the seafloor, and ocean currents and the communities’ natural movement of sediment along continental shelves can transport them widely,” notes CSIRO.

Scientists in the U.S. have shown microbial communities, such as bacteria, can inhabit this marine “plastisphere.” The microbes can weigh the plastic down, so it no longer floats. Mussels and other invertebrates may colonize floating plastics, adding weight to make them sink.

“Cigarette butts, plastic fragments, bottlecaps, and food wrappers are common on land, though rare on the seabed,” says Denise Hardesty, principal research scientist and co-author of the CSIRO study. Meanwhile, it found entangling items such fishing line, ropes, and plastic bags are common on the sea floor.

“The deep ocean is a sink for microplastics,” she says.

Plastics found in the sea fall into two basic categories: macroplastics (large pieces including what most of us would recognize as “packaging,” i.e., bottles, caps, and flexible wraps, and microplastics: bits of plastics that are 5 mm or smaller. Microplastics are further divided into primary and secondary microplastics. Primary microplastics include microfibers from clothing, microbeads, and plastic pellets, also known as nurdles. Secondary microplastics, where most plastic packaging is categorized, are created when larger plastic pieces are degraded by natural weathering processes and include water and drink bottles, fishing nets, and plastic bags.

Bacardí’s plan to replace Its petrochemical plastic bottles with biodegradable PHA bottles is intended to reduce the volume of secondary microplastics contributing to MPP. While not all of their PHA bottles will end up in the sea, one risk that will have to be monitored is the tendency of Bacardí’s customers to dispose carelessly of the biodegradable bottles.

Ben Miyares, Packaging Sherpa, is a packaging market and technology analyst and is president of The Packaging Management Institute, Inc. He can be reached at [email protected].