reSACK

Our packaging is constructed, photographs have been taken, and our banner is finished! All that’s left to do is print the banner, make up FAQ cards, and start the installation.

We have an FAQ and project statement now! Thanks to everyone who sent in questions, it helped a lot. Oh, and sorry Bethany and Doug, we didn’t include anything about feces or genital innuendo.

Project Statement
Our objective is to eliminate packaging waste the fast food industry. By designing reusable and infinitely recyclable packaging intended for fast food, and presenting both our designs and the benefits to be reaped directly to fast food corporations, we hope to get our product out to customers through the companies on board with our ideas, benefitting the industry, the customer, and the environment.

FAQ

These packages sure feel nice! What are they made from???
Our boxes are made from an infinitely recyclable polymer called polypropylene. At the moment, we’re using Yupo brand 75 pound stock, but Yupo isn’t being very cooperative with us, so there’s a good chance that this will change.

Polypropylene? That doesn’t sound very good for the environment!
Well, no. And yes. While polypropylene may not be biodegradable, it is 100% recyclable. That means it can be recycled without degrading the quality of material, unlike the majority of alleged “recyclables,” including the paper used for most modern fast food containers. It’s also waterproof, so it can be washed and reused.

Oh, neat! So if they’re recyclable do I just toss them in any old recycling bin when I’m done?
Unfortunately not. Most recycling plants are not equipped to distinguish between our 100% recyclable plastic and the more common type that degrades with each usage. And with waterproof packages, why not simply wash them and reuse them if possible rather than wasting a ton of energy on transportation and processing just to make an identical product?

I get fast food because it’s convenience! Why would I want to wash and return a box after I’m done with it? This is dumb!
Ok, yeah, you got us. We’re asking customers to bring back their boxes. You don’t have to wash them though! Our boxes are specifically designed to easily disassemble and reassemble so that they can be laid flat for a quick and thorough cleaning by employees.

Ok, that’s good, I guess, but I’d still rather just throw out the boxes and not have to deal with them again!
Oh, but there’s something in it for you! We’re confident that our packaging will save companies money in the long run, enabling them to pass the savings onto the customers responsible for helping them. Though specific plans would be up to the company to decide, we encourage a “coupon” model, where boxes have a printed value on them, redeemable on the customer’s next visit.

I do like coupons! But what if I break a box? How can that be reused?
Remember, this plastic is infinitely recyclable. It can be melted down and reused 100% without losing anything. A broken box would still be valuable.

Gee, reSack sure is neat!
We know

Though we were, at one point, considering having a poll to decide which material to use, we’ve decided that polypropylene (Yupo) is clearly the best choice. Just because it’s not biodegradable, doesn’t mean it’s not eco-efficient. Its easy reusability and 100% recyclability makes it a valuable technical nutrient once it’s produced. Ultimately, nothing is wasted, and because it can be reused as is, it also significantly reduces energy used to produce and transport it.

We’ve updated our logo to make it seem more friendly. This is likely to be the final design.

Seriously, how adorable is that little guy?

We got our hands on some packaging from McDonalds and disassembled them to help with our own box designs. We’ve scanned them in and made templates to work with. While these boxes all require glue to assemble, our final designs will be entirely glueless to make disassembly and washing easier .

Over the past week I have tried to contact Yupo several times, both by phone and via e-mail. Unfortunately, I have received no response. We did find out however, that Hyatt’s carried Yupo paper and I picked some up for package mock-ups. Templates have already been made for the mock-ups. A few changes will be made to their design so that they can be put together without the use of an adhesive.

Just something else to consider. Nature Works makes a corn based bio-plastic that could also be used to create our packaging. It’s already being used for food packaging, so in the event that Yupo ends up being toxic or something, Nature Works should be a good substitute.

This is a really simple logo idea.

I just shot off a sample request to Yupo with the following message attached:

I am working with two other students at the University at Buffalo to explore alternate, eco-effective methods of mass produced packaging. Currently, we are focusing on the fast food industry and believe a Yupo cover stock would be a perfect replacement for the currently used partially-recyclable packaging that loses integrity each time it’s recycled. We have a gallery showing coming up on April 17th to show off our research and prototypes. We’re very excited about the potential of working with Yupo to achieve our goals, and hope you may be interested enough in our work to contact us and discuss it further.

We’ll try a follow up call in a few days.

After a bit more investigation, we managed to follow Cradle to Cradle’s “DuraBook” label to durabooks.com. Under the FAQ, they listed Yupo as a carrier of “stock similar to that used in DuraBooks.” The material is a bit pricey, but not unreasonable. They carry paper ranging from 8.5″ x 11″ to 38″ x 50″. We have yet to deconstruct and measure a series of fast food containers, so the dimensions we need remain undetermined. In the meantime, I’m eying the 12.5″ x 19″ size, as Yupo carries a very affordable 50 pound 250 pack and 58 pound 125 pack for both around $75 shipped. Getting some sort of donation from Yupo would be great, but we can’t really rely on that happening, so I’d be willing to split $75 three ways.