Why Packaging Matters
If you care about our planet like us, you think a lot about waste and what to do with it. Whether it’s recycling or composting, we have a ton of options and every city or town is different. But in the end, as consumers, we’re still faced with whatever the company chooses to package its products—no matter how sustainable it is.
At Satya, we know that every decision we make has a huge impact. We ship our natural skin relief products to more than 900 stores across Canada and to our customers around the world. It’s a reality we don’t take lightly. It’s why we chose the name Satya, which means higher truth—the northern star for the company. Here’s a primer on what we think about when it comes to packaging and why it matters:
Reuse First
Every Satya product is refillable, since that’s the best choice for our environment. As you likely know, the recycling industry is imperfect, and in some cases, it involves shipping our consumer waste to landfills in developing nations. There’s a reason why it’s Reduce, Reuse, then Recycle. As a social venture, it’s our responsibility to ensure every product we create is responsible from the start, right until the end of its life cycle. The longer we can extend that life cycle, the better. That’s why every member of the Satya product family is made of top quality, durable materials, all refillable with our Satya Refill Pouch.
Glass
Glass is a wonderfully safe way to store products. Even though its more expensive for us, we chose glass because it's a non-toxic, naturally protective, and sustainable way to store your Satya. It's also durable, so you can repurpose it indefinitely. Plus, glass is one of the few products out there that can be easily recycled into new products, since it can maintain its purity near endlessly.
But while glass is a clean alternative to plastic, it’s also heavy. That means it’s taxing on the planet. From the beginning of its life to the time it’s shipped to you or sold in-store, this travel puts carbon into our environment. It’s a big reason why we purchase carbon offsets, making us completely carbon neutral, with our friends at the Great Bear Rainforest Initiative.
Paper
Since the beginning, we’ve used paper packaging that's made from 100% recycled materials and printed with veggie and soy-based inks.
Zero Waste
As you know, our Compostable Refill Pouch may look like plastic but it’s actually made from 100% compostable GMO-free corn and wood fibre. Once you're done with the pouch, you can just toss it right into your green bin or compost it in your garden.
This allows you to refill any and all of your Satya products, support the environment, AND save money on shipping.
Introducing the Satya Stick & The One stick!
Our Satya Stick and The One stick are designed to glide smoothly over your dry and sensitive skin, while ensuring you are getting exactly the right amount of product — no more, no less —with no fingers in a jar.
But to bring you the most durable and best version of this product, it had to be refillable, reusable and sustainable, like every member of the Satya product family. And to do this, we had to use plastic. So, how did we choose plastic packaging for Satya that upholds our northern star of the company: to be honestly good for people and the planet? It took us two years, but we’re thrilled to announce an innovative solution.
The Plastic Bank
The beauty of plastic is that it’s light, making it far less energy-intensive to ship around the world. As you likely know, shipping is a major contributor to our climate crisis.
The heavier-duty plastics, like the plastic we’ve used for the Satya Stick, are durable, so you can keep using them for many years. While most plastics are designed to be thrown away or recycled, we made sure our durable plastic twist stick can actually, and easily, be refilled and reused. That's a big reason why we chose a reusable plastic twist stick over a paper stick dispenser, so you can easily apply Satya's skin protectant on-the-go.
But no material is completely free of harm to the planet. Plastic is, of course, made from petrochemicals. We also recognize that plastic is contributing to our global crisis in ocean plastics. To be part of the solution instead of the problem, we’ve teamed up with the Plastic Bank to offset our use of plastic. This innovative partnership means that for every stick you purchase, you’re helping pay someone in our developing coastal regions to harvest plastic from waterways and prevent them from getting into the ocean.
How does it work?
The Plastic Bank is a Canada-based social enterprise that puts a price on something we all use, abuse and throw away—plastic.
Through a network of volunteers and employees around the world, the Plastic Bank provides work opportunities for people living in our coastal communities that involves cleaning up plastic waste from the ocean. People living in poverty are employed to collect throwaway plastic from sensitive waterways which they can then exchange at local plastic depots for for credit toward social services. To do this, Plastic Bank has created digital tokens. Using blockchain technology, people earn tokens for the plastic they collect, which can then be used toward necessities like groceries, healthcare coverage, or school tuition, reducing the risk of loss or theft. The plastic collected is then recycled into new materials, further extending its value.
How cool is that? Check out this link to learn more about Plastic Bank's great work!
