THE BRIEF
BookTrust is the UK's largest children's reading charity, dedicated to getting children reading. One of their main ways of doing this is giving a curated selection of books to new parents in their "Yellow Baby Bag".
The bag was originally made from canvas, Booktrust approached us to look at the environmental impact of this product and to see if this could be improved.
MATERIAL CHOICE
Working with our network of suppliers we found that recycled PET would be a good fit for the product and client. PET is made from old plastic, like plastic drinks bottles and has a very favourable environmental footprint. The reclaimed plastic can be formed into threads and woven into a traditional flexible fabric.
Although suitable for the physical requirements of the product, to ensure this provided the eco improvements requested by the client we compared the environmental impact of both designs and materials.
RESEARCH
Working with our external partners we carried out a Life Cycle Analysis to compare and quantify the overall environmental impact. This included various environmental factors (CO2, land, water and energy usage) and included all stages of the product life cycle (material production, manufacture, transportation, use and disposal).
We found that cotton had much higher levels of land, water and energy usage compared to the RPET option.
PRODUCTION & FULFILMENT
Once we had shown the substantial reduction in the environmental impact the client was happy to go ahead with the design and production.
After receiving artwork we handled the rest of the process including quality control (through sample checking and DUPRO/FRI inspections), safety, compliance, ethical requirements and delivery to the client in the UK.