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Serendipity Strikes a Third Time with Sustainability

In analyzing the sustainability of the new inverted squeeze pouch for its BBQ sauce, Uncle Dougie’s is surprised to learn of its environmental impact versus glass jars.

A life-cycle analysis of glass jars versus flexible pouches yielded surprising results.
A life-cycle analysis of glass jars versus flexible pouches yielded surprising results.

In the accompanying article, CEO of Uncle Dougie’s Rob Johnson explains how serendipity led to the partnership between the BBQ sauce maker and STANDCAP supplier Glenroy just when it was looking for a replacement for its glass packaging, and then again how it led to finding a co-packer willing to invest in filling the unique packaging format. In a third serendipitous event, Johnson’s municipality in Boise, ID, stopped collecting glass for recycling—a move that led him to research the reality behind glass’s perceived sustainability versus glass.

“I found there are a lot of municipalities around the country that are no longer accepting glass in curbside recycling for a whole host of reasons,” Johnson says. “Number one, it’s really resource intensive to clean and process glass to be recycled. And, number two, the secondary market for recycled glass just isn’t robust enough for it to be a profit-making enterprise for waste companies.

“The other thing is, because it’s such a laborious process to recycle glass, the demand for it and the throughput don’t match up. So there’s way too much glass to be cleaned and recycled than there is capacity to do it. As a result, all of these municipal waste companies are collecting glass, and it is, in effect, going into the landfill anyway.”

With this information in hand, Johnson began to wonder if the STANDCAP, with its lightweight, flexible nature, might actually be more sustainable than glass, even though it’s not recyclable. To find the answer to that question, Uncle Dougie’s worked with Glenroy and the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) to measure the environmental footprint of squeeze pouches versus typical glass bottles for BBQ sauce. “The results,” says Johnson, “were a lot more dramatic than we were anticipating.”

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