Why do we endorse products?
Here at Planet Ark we understand attempting to figure out which product is better for you and the environment while in the supermarket aisle can be overwhelming.
That’s why we developed Planet Ark’s Endorsement Program to provide you, the consumer, with a recommendation on which products to choose in order to reduce your impact on the environment. We’ve done the hard work for you! Simply look for the ‘Endorsed by Planet Ark’ logo on selected supermarket products.
By endorsing a select range of products which offer Australian consumers environmentally responsible alternatives, we can support our other environmental education campaigns such as National Recycling Week and National Tree Day, driving positive change nationally.
Who are we trying to help with our endorsed product program?
Our Endorsed by Planet Ark program helps two groups:
How do we approve products for endorsement?
We do the hard yards through rigorous research, analyses, supply chain review, etc before we endorse any product. Find out how we evaluate our products before we endorse them here:
Think of Planet Ark as your friendly guide in the shopping aisle, helping you make better decisions for the environment. Browse our range of endorsed products via the categories below. Remember, if you purchase Planet Ark endorsed products, you’re also helping the success of our other environmental campaigns such as National Tree Day and National Recycling Week!
Disclaimer: Whilst no product on the supermarket shelf is perfect in its entirety, we endeavour to provide products with a lower environmental impact than competing products.
These products are targeted towards busy, working families, couples and individuals that may not have the time to make DIY products to reduce their footprint. However, we definitely encourage this sort of activity to become even more environmentally sustainable.
Where can you buy our endorsed products?
Reference to claim 'one in six people now having some form of allergy or environmental illness': Prevalence and effects of multiple chemical sensitivities in Australia, Anne Steinmann, Preventative Medicine Reports 2018 Vol 10 pp. 191-194.
End of life: Recycle the cardboard inner toilet rolls and recycle the soft plastic packaging through REDcycle bins (located at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets)
End of life: Recycle the cardboard inner rolls and recycle the soft plastic packaging through REDcycle (located at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets)
End of life: If you’re a customer of a home delivery service, the business will pick the box and liner up on the next delivery and recycle it. The wool can be recycled up to three or four times!
If it was a one-time delivery, the polyethylene wrap is recyclable through REDcycle. The wool can be put to many good uses, from lagging pipes to insulating garden plants from frost, or as mulch!
Planet Ark is proud to endorse the Aware Sensitive product range. Aware Sensitive has become one of Australia’s most popular laundry, cleaning and air freshener brands for good reason. Not only does it uphold a strong commitment to have minimal impact on the environment but also on our personal health.
If you have young children or your family suffers from asthma or allergies, the Aware Sensitive products are perfect for you. The Planet Ark staff also love to use these products in their own homes.
Here are some of the reasons why Planet Ark loves the Aware Sensitive range:
Where can I buy Aware Sensitive products?
Find out where you can buy Aware Sensitive products here.
Planet Ark proudly endorses the Orange Power product range. At Planet Ark, we love a good trash-turned-into-treasure story and Orange Power is certainly one of those. It is an innovative brand which took a ‘waste’ product, orange peels, and turned it into great smelling, high-performing cleaning, laundry and air freshener products.
Orange Power was born out of Mildura’s orange fields after discovering the uses for the orange oil that came from the discarded orange peels. The orange oil allowed Orange Power to produce cleaning and laundry products that were formulated without using harsh chemicals and palm oil derived ingredients, instead relying on the abilities of their natural formulas. A win for the environment and a win for you!
If you are looking for laundry and cleaning products that have minimal impact on the environment, smell great and are highly effective, Orange Power is for you.
Based on our assessment of Orange Power ingredients for their impacts on the environment in terms of biodegradability, ecotoxicity and bioaccumulation, here’s some of the reasons why we are proud to endorse these products:
Check out Orange Power’s sister brand Aware Sensitive for more laundry, cleaning and air fresheners products that Planet Ark proudly endorses.
Where can I buy Orange Power products?
Find out where you can buy Orange Power products here.
Planet Ark proudly endorses Naturale for the valuable role it plays in keeping good paper from going to waste. Made from 100% recycled office paper, its tissue products are both soft on nature, and soft on you.
Manufactured at an advanced recycling plant located in Brisbane, Naturale uses recycled office paper mixed with water to create pulp. This is then cleaned and rolled to form sheet paper in a completely chlorine free process. Recycling office paper to make tissue products in this way requires significantly fewer resources compared to using virgin fibre which is a great win for the environment.
Here are some of the reasons why Planet Ark supports Naturale tissues products:
If every Australian household used Naturale Toilet Tissue in just one bathroom we would save 55,000 tonnes of office paper every year. That’s enough paper to fill 100 Olympic swimming pools!
Where can I buy Naturale Sensitive products?
Naturale is available at most leading supermarket stores.
End of life: Recycle the cardboard inner toilet rolls and recycle the soft plastic packaging through REDcycle bins (located at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets)
End of life: Recycle the cardboard inner rolls and recycle the soft plastic packaging through REDcycle (located at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets)
Why is Naturale wrapped in plastic?
Good question! We admire your commitment to the environment! The product is wrapped in plastic for protection against liquid, spills, moisture in the air, condensation from other products and the transportation process. Paper packaging does not provide enough protection for products sold in a supermarket.
Wasted product also means wasting the energy, water and resources that went into manufacturing it. Other ‘paper wrapped’ supermarket brands are wrapped in plastic-lined paper which means the wrap is completely unrecyclable. The paper looks nice but it can’t be recycled.
We are aware that some non-supermarket brands individually wrap their tissue products in paper, however we choose to endorse products that are stocked in supermarkets and widely available to the public. This allows us to help people make positive choices in their trips to the supermarket.
What do I do with the plastic wrap?
Naturale is committed to ‘doing the right thing’ and are part of the REDcycle program, which has free soft plastic collection bins in selected Coles and Woolworths stores. The soft plastics are made into road surfaces, outdoor seating, picnic benches, signs and more. Naturale’s support of REDcycle is instrumental in ensuring this program can become more widely accessibly across Australia, allowing more soft plastics to be recycled nationally.
Find your nearest REDcycle drop off location here: http://www.redcycle.net.au
Through our partnership with Australian Paper, Australia’s sole manufacturer of office and printing paper, Planet Ark 100% Recycled Paper sprung into the market. We want to put recycled paper into the spotlight and ensure people around the country understand the environmental and economic benefits of choosing it, over virgin paper.
We wanted to ensure that if Planet Ark was to have its own brand of office paper, it would have the best environmental impact, making it the premium environmental office paper to buy.
Here are the reasons why Planet Ark put our trusted brand, onto this paper product:
If you care about the environment or you are an organisation that wants to reduce their carbon footprint, Planet Ark 100% Recycled Paper is for you.
Find out more about our overarching Make It Australian Recycled campaign here.
Where can I buy Planet Ark 100% Recycled Paper?
Planet Ark 100% Recycled Paper is available at most leading office supply companies which can be found here.
Planet Ark is proud to partner with Planet Protector for their new product range, Woolcool. Woolcool is an environmentally responsible insulated packaging range made from waste wool, which can be used for the transit of temperature sensitive goods. Wool is a sustainable and highly effective natural insulation material. Through thermal buffering, tests show that Woolcool maintains the temperature of pharmaceutical and food contents for longer than conventional materials.
In recent years there has been a significant rise of home delivery services for groceries and pre-prepared meals. Frequently, expanded polystyrene (EPS) boxes are used which are thermally efficient, but bulky to store, transport and have a range of negative environmental impacts associated with their use. Latest statistics indicate that only 29.4% of EPS is currently recycled* and the remainder either goes to landfill or ends up in the litter stream^ polluting our environment and waterways. This is a major environmental concern and why Planet Ark has recently partnered with Planet Protector for their Woolcool range of products.
If your business needs to send temperature-sensitive goods to customers or business partners, Woolcool is a fantastic solution for you. On the flip side, if you’re a customer of one of the many chilled or frozen food delivery services or have your pharmaceuticals delivered, why not ask the company if they would consider Woolcool as an alternative to the EPS that you are often left with?
Here are some of the reasons why Planet Ark loves Woolcool:
Through our Partnership with Planet Protector we will help develop and refine the Woolcool product range to further reduce the environmental impacts compared to traditional packaging formats.
*OFarrell, K. & Allan, P. National Recycling and Recovery Survey (NRRS) 2015-16 for plastics packaging (IND 299/16). packagingcovenant.org.au (2016)
^Polystyrene Fact Sheet. cleanup.org.au (2010)
Where can I buy Woolcool for my business?
Contact Planet Protector to enquire about your business using Woolcool today via https://www.woolcool.com.au/contact-us/.
Planet Ark endorses the RecycleMe™ program as a great way for reducing the waste that is sent to landfill from takeaway coffee, other beverages with paper based single use takeaway cups and their plastic lids. In line with the waste hierarchy we encourage the use of reusable cups or simply drinking your coffee in the cafe within a café first and foremost before choosing a takeaway cup.
We do however recognise that takeaway cups will be still be used and that there is significant confusion about whether these cups and their lids are recyclable through existing waste collection services. Therefore, a practical option is to provide a system for collection and recycling of takeaway cups and lids. Detpak’s RecycleMe™ cup is one such system that provides the opportunity to significantly reduce the number of cups and lids destined for landfill.
Planet Ark recognises that this program is in the establishment phase (2018) and that further development is required to maximise the value of its output streams. Endorsement of the program requires that these options are established and that the best value outcomes for the materials are achieved in line with the waste hierarchy, along with a zero waste to landfill target. A period of one year is set to achieve these outcomes from the commencement of the endorsement.
Where can you buy our endorsed products?
Contact RecycleMe™ directly at https://www.detpak.com/recycleme/.
