Shaking up the plastic-heavy drinks industry

The NZ entrepreneur behind beauty business Ethique is set to launch her latest eco-venture: Incrediballs.

Kia ora, welcome to Future Proof.

Thanks for joining me. This week: nature conservation does work, and the latest on the fast-track. But first, Brianne West founded the multi-million-dollar sustainable beauty business Ethique, and now she has her sights set on shaking up the drinks industry.

Our thirst for a tasty bevvy is insatiable, but it comes with a hefty plastic price for the planet: 580 billion plastic bottles every year. Drinks giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi were the number one and two brands with the biggest share of identifiably branded plastic waste, according to a recent global study.

“This industry needs to change,” says West. “I just think it’s a disgrace. They keep backing down from all these promises they’re going to make and in the meantime, they’re coating the planet in plastic. They are selling us our own water, flavoured with sugar and colourings. I mean, the whole thing is just bonkers.”

Imagine if, instead of buying a bottle of fizzy drink or cracking open a can, you could simply dissolve a tab in a glass of water and, voilà, have a glass of cola or blackcurrant or whatever delicious thirst quencher you fancy. This is West’s solution to an industry dripping in plastic: flavoured drink tablets in plastic-free packaging. “It’s like a bath bomb for your drink, except that it tastes delicious,” she explains. 

Dubbed Incrediballs, the tablets will be a more sustainable option in a number of ways, according to West. First, compostable packaging cuts out fossil-fuel-derived plastic bottles. Second, you’re not shipping around truckloads of water, so you’re cutting down on transport emissions. You can get 100 times more Incrediballs into a container than you can equivalent bottled drinks. Incrediballs will also use food waste wherever possible, for example in citrus extracts, and all ingredients will be natural.

Incrediballs are being developed at a lab in the UK, but West says the goal is to eventually manufacture onshore in New Zealand. Nonetheless, the extra transport miles don’t add much in terms of carbon emissions when compared to a bottled drink.

After “a lot of technical food science”, Incrediballs are looking to launch in a few months’ time, initially with five or six flavours. Last week, West staged a taste testing event in Christchurch, which revealed both “clear favourites” and “some things we need to tweak”. Further down the track, she aims to produce a functional range with calming and energy formulations, and a cocktail range. “They taste great. We don't just want to make slightly flavoured water. We want to make really impactful delicious drinks that you want to drink over and over again.”

“This is quite a heavy topic we're tackling,” West says, “but the way we want to do it is fun. Because at the end of the day, we want to make people feel good about making a choice that genuinely has less impact on the planet than their alternative.”

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The latest on the Fast-track Approvals Bill: Climate Change Commission weighs in, and a concession from Bishop

This week’s must-read on the fast-track: the kiwi is finally getting its comeuppance, writes Hayden Donnell on The Spinoff. The national bird has caused a national economic crisis that only the National coalition government can fix.

Elsewhere: the Climate Change Commission has written to the minister for climate change about the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill, noting that the proposed legislation “does not appear to give sufficient weight to climate considerations”. The commission warns that if the bill fast-tracks emissions intensive projects, it could compromise the country’s ability to stick to its emissions reduction targets. 

The commission joins a growing chorus of discontent about the bill. At the first select committee hearing of oral submissions last week, none of the seven submitting organisations supported the bill in its current form, RNZ’s Kate Green reported. Likewise, business leaders are concerned that the government’s rollback of environmental protections could affect their ability to attract foreign capital, Dileepa Fonseka writes on BusinessDesk (paywall).

Some of the criticism appears to have reached the minister for RMA reform, Chris Bishop, who last week suggested that changes to the ministerial decision-making component of the bill could be considered. Newsroom’s Marc Daalder has useful coverage of Bishop’s backtrack.

‘Modest progress’ at plastic treaty talks

The latest round of negotiations for a global plastic treaty wrapped up last week, with only modest progress made. Amid lobbying from fossil fuel interests, a major point of contention centred on introducing limits on plastic production – a measure that scientific modelling shows is necessary for reducing harmful plastic pollution. Canada, Rwanda and Peru proposed a target to cut virgin plastic production by 40% by 2040 (compared with 2025) and the draft text leaves the possibility for a cap open – for now. Negotiations will continue in late November, with a final treaty to be developed by the end of the year.

Yes, CO₂ is essential for plant growth. But it’s still disastrous for the climate

I made the mistake of reading the comments under a climate change video on social media recently, and among the “climate is always changing” nonsense, another idea kept popping up: that carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions can’t be bad because carbon dioxide is plant food. It seems this particular argument is having a moment among climate deniers, with Reuters publishing a fact check on the topic. In short: CO₂ is munched by plants as part of photosynthesis, but we’re spewing it into the atmosphere in such quantities that the Earth is warming, which is ultimately bad for plants (and us).

Behind the Story is a new podcast from The Spinoff that goes beyond the bylines. Join The Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman every Saturday as she sits down with a staff writer or contributor to gain more insight about a big story on The Spinoff from the week. Listen now.

More stories

• Nature conservation really, actually works – and we’re getting better at it, according to a new global study.

• Could green hydrogen be part of our energy mix? GNS Science is about to open a new lab investigating the fuel, The Detail reports.

• Hundreds of hours of underwater footage of endangered New Zealand sea lions has been kept secret from scientists, Andrea Vance writes in The Post (paywall).

• Small changes made using “nudge theory” help push more diners to sustainable plant-based options.

• Patagonia has developed a method of deconstructing old wetsuits at the molecular level, so they can be used to make new wetsuits.

• The Great Barrier Reef has suffered its worst bleaching event yet, leaving a “giant coral graveyard”.

• Imagine charging your phone with planet-heating pollution. Aussie researchers have created a proof-of-concept device that generates electricity by absorbing CO₂.

• In Europe, agribusiness interests clash with the EU’s proposed sweeping climate plan, with rioting farmers dumping manure in the streets.

Listen to the click-based kōrero of sperm whales.

To finish this issue, sperm whales clickbait researchers with intriguing vocalisations. Scientists have generated an alphabet after analysing the recordings of 60 different whales. It reveals the previously unknown complexity of sperm whale communication, with the sequence, structure and modulation of clicks appearing to carry substantial information and meaning, similar to human language. Some clicks communicate a whale’s identity, but most of the function and meaning of the click alphabet remains a mystery.

Overwhalemed with awe for nature,

Ellen

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