At Bower, we're always looking for ways to eliminate plastic waste out of the things you use every day. So we were excited to team up with Kelpi to launch, as a limited edition, the world's first seaweed-derived coating that lets paper packaging hold liquid, without a fossil-fuel plastic lining.
A world's first, and our customers were part of it
Most paper packaging can't hold liquid on its own. That's why sachets and cartons are almost always lined with a thin film of plastic. It’s usually invisible, but it is still there, and cannot be recycled.
Kelpi's coating is powered by nature and it's set to change packaging for good. It's made by bonding natural sugars found in seaweed with sustainably sourced plant oils into an ultra-thin barrier layer, strong enough to hold liquid, and simple enough to recycle at home with paper waste.
We invited a group of Bower customers to be among the very first people in the world to try it. They received a selection of our natural hand washes in 5ml sachets, all made with this brand new seaweed coating, before anyone else got the chance.
We'd often been asked by customers if we could offer samples, and it's a request we'd initially turned down as the usual ways of doing samples just weren't sustainable enough for us. This trial gave us a solution we could finally say yes to.
Why seaweed?
At Bower, we always believe in the power of nature, so a coating that's entirely nature-powered was a natural fit.
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Made from plants, not fossil fuels. Every bit of carbon in the coating comes from seaweed and plant oils, not oil or gas, and that was independently tested, not just claimed.
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One of the fastest-growing crops on Earth. Seaweed needs no land, no fresh water and no fertiliser to grow.
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Good for the ocean, not just neutral. Seaweed farming is genuinely regenerative for ocean ecosystems, rather than simply being a better alternative.
It's a rare example of a material that solves a packaging problem and does good below the waterline while it's at it.
Proud to be leading the way
This is a limited-edition launch, made possible by the incredible support of our community and our friends at Kelpi. Our customers are putting the sachets to the test in real life, and their feedback is the starting point for a very promising future for biobased coated paper packaging. Thank you to everyone who took part, and to Kelpi, for trusting us to bring this world first to life.
Plastic-free liquid packaging has been something of a holy grail in sustainable packaging. We're proud to have been one of the first brands anywhere to trial it, and grateful to have done it alongside partners and customers who care as much about getting this right as we do.
Watch this space.
Team Bower