Environmental sustainability is very important and it's become even more important for all of us to play a role in making sure that the environmental conservation is a priority. Even the food we eat and the containers that carry that food, have a high chance of potentially being detrimental tp the environment.
Chateau Gateaux, South Africa’s much loved quality frozen dessert franchise has announced it’s innovative and new approach to becoming more environmentally- friendly.
The patisserie has a started a programme to eliminate as many environmentally damaging packaging material elements as is possible starting with their very own polystyrene packaging that they have been using replacing it with cardboard which is 100% recyclable. This was announced Thursday at the “Chateau Gateaux embraces sustainability” launch which was held at Durban North.
Chateau Gateaux Director, Malcom Lyle said as a business they have become increasingly aware of the need to preserve the environment.
“We are outdoor enthusiasts and are appalled at the level of environmental abuse right here in our own province and country. When we looked at our business, we realized that we are contributing to this and need to face up to the fact that we have to make substantial changes immediately, and with polystyrene being so environmentally offensive we thought that doing away with it was the most obvious place to start."
"In the past there wasn’t anything else that could be used that could protect the cake to the extent that polystyrene did. But now fortunately, with technological developments, we’ve been able to find materials and treat materials that are biodegradable that can replace polystyrene whereas they weren’t available at all previously”, he said.
“Extensive tests were run to make sure that the new packaging could withstand the pressure. Once we had finalized the design, we also conducted transport and storage tests over long periods of time to ensure the packaging preserved the exceptional quality of our products. We exaggerated the test environment to ensure the packaging still performed, and we are satisfied that the stringent tests were all passed. The polystyrene will be phased-out and the cardboard packaging will be introduced, and all polystyrene will be then removed from the business. Our hope is that then polystyrene will find its way out of the market as well, as use of polystyrene declines and use of the new packaging increases”, he added.
Managing Director Ilan Lipschitz. model Nicola Colyn, in a dress made of our new packaging, designed by Kelly Love an undergraduate student at DUT, Director, Malcom Lyle. Picture: Sibonelo Ngcobo/ANA