As an environmentally responsible and health-promoting company with the highest regard for our planet and all its living organisms, Oregon's Wild Harvest does not take any manufacturing decision lightly. The decision to use plastic bottles to package the majority of our encapsulated herbs is no exception.

Like some of our customers, we initially believed that glass packaging was the more ecologically sound choice. The commonly held belief is that glass is a more natural substance, that it requires less energy to manufacture and/or recycle, and that all plastics leach toxins into the contents of their containers. There is also the assumption that glass has a higher rate of being recycled than does plastic.

The downsides to glass packaging led us to take a closer look at the two options, to ensure that we were comparing apples and apples.

Some of the pitfalls with glass packaging from a manufacturing point of view include:

• Breakage in shipping.
• Glass is heavy; an empty glass bottle is seven times heavier than an empty plastic bottle. The added weight requires more energy to ship across the country.
• Glass is inherently more expensive to buy, to ship, and also to recycle.

The obvious exception is when glass is being re-used, such as with milk bottles, and not merely recycled. Re-using is always had a lower impact on the environment, but at this time, there is no program in place for the reusing of vitamin or supplement bottles.

Plastic packaging also carries with it commonly known downsides:

• Unrecycled plastics pollute the environment
• Some plastics can leach chemicals into the contents of the packaging
• Some plastics can contain PVCs and other harmful chemicals

We decided to take a closer look by comparing glass and plastic and the ecological impact of each using three environmental parameters:

• Energy consumption
• Air pollution
• Global Warming potential

Some of the results were surprising:

• Glass consumes nearly twice as much energy to produce as plastic (source: Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute: 2008). The fossil fuels required to generate the very high temperatures needed to form glass are just one consideration.
• Glass produces nearly three times more air pollution than plastic (source: Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute: 2008). The pollution created by the fossil fuels needed to manufacture glass are one matter: another is the considerable amount of fossil fuels required to transport the glass, and the pollution created by such transport.
• Glass creates nearly seven times more global warming gases than plastic (source: Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute: 2008)
• Glass recycle rates are only slightly higher than plastic recycling rates (source: State of California Dept. of Conservation 2007)

So....evidently, glass is not all it's cracked up to be.

Our solution? Using the most recyclable plastic available, and one which is free of PVCs. As a company committed to sustainability, we will continue to search for even more ecologically sound choices for packaging of our products. We strive to reduce our carbon footprint, and to provide herbs which not only promote the health of our customers, but the health of our planet as well.