Sponsored Sites Shop Online for Eco-Friendly Products Ekotribe Carbon Consulting Add your site here.

Melissa Floreani, owner of Espresso Syndicate, a company which supplies sustainable, organic fair trade coffee to cafes across Melbourne, has launched 'PLAnet Cup', a disposable, compostable coffee cup and lid that complements the existing fair trade offering. The paper cup is lined with biodegradable PLA (cornstarch) which is harvested from renewable resources and can be composted after use. Where forerunners have retained a plastic lid, the PLAnet Cup is entirely compostable, from the cup to the innovative bioplastic lid.

Green has become much more than a buzz word; it's a way of life. Across the developed world, businesses are being squeezed by grassroots and government pressure, compelling them to green-up their act. Packaging in particular has been highlighted as an area where individual consumers can make a difference by choosing to buy from retailers who use sustainable packaging.

Floreani developed the product after identifying a gap in the market: "As a coffee supplier, I was frustrated that I couldn't provide my customers with a genuinely eco-conscious disposable cup. Modern consumers want to limit the impact that they are having on the world, but they want this to fit with their lifestyles too. With PLAnet Cup, cafes can provide their customers with an easy way to preserve their green conscience without sacrificing their treat-to-self.”

The significant PLAnet Cups offering is the lid made from biodegradable plant-derived material that is 100% compostable. That means instead of using nasty plastic take away lids, we are putting something compostable and renewable into the waste stream.

And environmentally sound no longer goes hand in hand with a style vacuum. PLAnet Cup can be supplied to any cafe either pre-printed with their individual branding or as a white cup with minimal branding, accommodating the current trend for white cups with an ink logo stamp.

Steve Boyle owner of Orange Café on Chapel St, Windsor (VIC), already uses the PLAnet Cup. He notes: “Modern consumers genuinely care about the green credentials of the companies they buy from and the PLAnet Cups we’re using have been received well by our customers. In my opinion, you can’t be a retailer today and not exhaust all eco platforms."