As you may remember from our March Newsletter, the Co-op has opted to provide Preserve brand utensils for our ready-to-eat kitchen items. If you’ve visited our Co-op Kombucha Cart at Thursday Night Market, you have probably seen our new re-usable Co-op cups, which are also made by Preserve. And anyone who has come into the store in the past couple weeks has passed by our front register display, which features a variety of utensils, cups, bowls, plates, and other miscellaneous plastic items made by Preserve.
You might be wondering: why the enthusiasm for Preserve, a company that manufactures plastic products?
Preserve isn't just any plastic company. The company’s founder, Eric Hudson, founded Preserve in 1996 in order to start producing recycled plastic products that were of a higher quality than the usual recycled items found at the time. Along the way, he and his co-workers managed to build a remarkably sustainable business—all while working with plastic!
All of the Preserve products we carry, whether razor blades, toothbrushes, or drinking cups, are made entirely of 100% recycled materials. Not only that, they are 100% recyclable as well. But here’s what’s really special about Preserve: they will actually take all their items back and directly recycle them! No need to worry about whether or not Waste Management will take your used Preserve fork—just bring it back to the Co-op and we will send it directly back to the manufacturer. The life-cycle loop is guaranteed to be closed.
Preserve items are well-made, too. Our new Co-op cups have all the incredible sustainable traits Preserve is known for, and in addition they are dishwasher safe, BPA- and phthalate-free, and can even hold up to being microwaved. If you need another reason to get excited about Preserve or our sustainability practices at the Co-op, bring your Co-op cup (or any other reusable drinking vessel) to the Kombucha cart--you’ll save a dollar on your drink!
The Co-op is vigilantly looking forward for new ways to make our operations as earth-friendly as possible, and supporting ethical, sustainable recycling systems is one major way of doing so.