Plastics have been seen to cause severe damage to marine life, especially turtles. A lot of the time they get tangled up in six-pack rings from beer packaging, usually found around their necks or head. However, a brewery company in Florida has come up with a solution to tackle this problem.

 

Saltwater Brewery can be found in Delray Beach and was founded in 2013. It is a microbrewery and apart from creating beer, they donate to many ocean-based charities like Ocean Foundation and MOTE Marine Labs. Not only that, they have developed the world’s first biodegradable six-pack rings with the start-up company E6PR (Eco Six Pack Rings). E6PR was started in 2017 and collaborates with Entelequia, a leading biodegradables supplier in Mexico. The six-pack rings are made of the waste materials of brewing: wheat and barley. This means that turtles can, in fact, consume them. With turtles mistaking many plastic objects for jellyfish, their main prey, this helps them escape the danger of plastic. The packaging is also compostable, so even if people do not dispose of it properly, the product will degrade in open land or water systems in less than 200 days.

 

There is a rapidly increasing number of customers who are expecting companies to be environmentally friendly. In the 1960s and 1970s, more often than not the environment was an afterthought, but in today’s world, climate change and pollution are at the forefront of people’s minds. Corporate Social Responsibility means that companies need to be conscious of their social accountability in the eyes of stakeholders and the public. Businesses usually engage in sustainable activities in order to promote themselves as environmentally friendly, therefore enhancing their corporate image and reputation to attract consumers. Recently it has been found that when companies advertise goods associated with messages of environmental sustainability, this is more widely embraced and respected by customers.

 

The Saltwater Brewery has most definitely taken a step in the right direction, not just for the environment but also for its business, especially with consumers holding companies to account for their stance on green policies. Turtles now have a new snack and with this push for sustainability, companies are being more environmentally friendly than ever before!

 

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Sources:

• Website - https://www.e6pr.com/

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• Research Journal - Patel, P. (2019) Edible Packaging, ACS Central Science, 5(12): 1907-1910.

 

• Research Journal - Hanson, S., Jiang, L., Ye, J. and Murthy, N. (2019) Society or the environment? Understanding how consumers evaluate brand messages about corporate social responsibility activities, Journal of Brand Management, 26(1): 21-34.