Danone Canada has made two significant advancements in product packaging.
One is a green high-density polyethylene bioplastic for yogurt packaging and the other is an environmentally friendly production process, ‘expansion’, for separate serving products.
Danone Canada’s goal is to reduce its carbon footprint which led to development of these major packaging innovations towards sustainable environment.
In the new expansion process, an inert agent is added in the polystyrene plastic. The agent creates a thin foam layer in the polystyrene. This decreases the total plastic density by up to 18%. In addition, the individual serving yogurt package weight is decreased by the same percentage. Till date, the packaging process has been applied to 40% of Danone’s individual serving yogurts and 100% application is expected to be carried out by June 2011.
The ecological high-density polyethylene bioplastic material from Danone Canada is 100% recyclable and is produced from sugar cane. This material will help in reducing carbon dioxide footprint of various drinkable yogurt containers, including Danino Go, Danacol, DanActive and Drinkable Activia by 55%. Although the manufacturing cost of the bioplastic is high, the company will use it steadily to attain complete integration by 2011 end.