AUSTRALIA – MOO Premium Foods, an Australian manufacturer of premium yogurt and dairy products, has announced its sustainability efforts of using plastic washed up on beaches and found in oceans in its tubs and lids.
The yogurt and dairy products company worked closely with Adelaide-based packaging converter TechnoPlas to develop the new sustainability focused packaging.
With the new innovation, MOO becomes the first company in Australia to use food-grade packaging that has been made from 100 percent reclaimed Ocean Bound Plastic.
Ocean Bound Plastic is the term used to describe all the plastic waste that has ended up in the ocean, as well as plastic rubbish found within 50km of a coastline that is not managed and at risk of ending up as marine debris.
MOO Premium Foods co-founder Mick Sanders said the idea for the yogurt tubs manufactured from 100 percent reclaimed Ocean Bound Plastic came from a barrage of questions he received from nine-year-olds at a primary school talk.
The discovery of a Malaysian company converting plastic collected from the ocean, beaches, and waterways into a food-grade plastic resin also became a game-changer for the entire industry.
That discovery sparked the idea of an opportunity to finally help clean up plastic pollution and make a real difference.
Sanders stated: “At the very least, we knew we’d be able to make a yogurt tub from a mix of new and reclaimed plastic, but we wanted to push the boundaries.
To finally see the resin and realize it could successfully be made into 100 percent reclaimed Ocean Bound Plastic tubs were fantastic.”
The change in packaging attracted the attention of major partners like Woolworth, which is partnering with MOO as part of its commitment to ‘growing greener’.
According to Sanders, about 100 tonnes of plastic, which is the equivalent of 1.1 million plastic bottles will be removed from beaches, oceans, and waterways this year alone by MOO.
The collected plastic is then sorted, crushed, washed, and ‘melted’ down into resin, which then goes through a decontamination process that meets food-grade US FDA 21 CFR 177.1520 test compliance.
MOO imports the food-grade plastic resin (US FDA 21 CFR 177.1520 test compliant) and takes the products to the local manufacturer, TechnoPlas, to mold into the yogurt tubs and lids.
The company further noted that the tub, lid, and foil are 100 percent recycled and 100 percent recyclable and just need rinsing before being placed in curbside recycling bins for the process to start over again.
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