You can find the Publisher's Letter on page 8 of the January/February 2025 issue:

For six years we have been working on a project to replace the polyethylene flow wrap that protects our magazines from water damage when mailed to subscribers. We post more than 50,000 units a year, and the wider magazine industry totals some 10 million units. It’s a problem worth solving.

We looked at switching to paper envelopes, but the gum that seals the flap means it can’t be recycled, so it goes to landfill. We looked at a paper wrap, but the type of paper required has around six times the carbon footprint of the plastic alternative—so it would be popular, but amount to greenwashing.

We worked with WasteMINZ to trial compostable wrap but these were flawed for two reasons. First, a trial (with NZ Gardener) put temperature loggers into home compost bins around country and demonstrated that 75% of them never reach composting temperature because they’re shaded too much of the day. This would result in readers systematically turning un-composted plastics into arable soils all around New Zealand. We also discovered that many are confused about which bin compostable wrap goes into, often contaminating recycling schemes. Two big downsides.

Later, we discovered a study by NZPost which had evaluated various materials for courier bags against 14 environmental indicators. It came to an interesting conclusion. Comparing the carbon footprint of new plastic, paper, compostable and recycled plastic, it was the recycled plastic that outperformed all others. Recycled low-density polyethylene (rLDPE), to be specific, which has half the carbon footprint of new plastic wrap and around 9 times less than a paper wrap. It was worth looking into.

We found a handful of suppliers. The standout product was called POLLAST!C. Ironically their office was just up the hill, so I popped in for a coffee with Becs Percasky. She explained the idea: Plastic is light and durable, meaning it is mechanically stronger for a given amount of material, and you need to ship less weight around in our transport systems—factors which result in the lowest carbon footprint of any packaging material. It’s also recyclable. It’s a great material, except when it’s disposed of improperly, and particularly when it makes its way into waterways, then the sea.

What if, wondered Percasky, you could make recycled plastic packaging from plastic pollution that was already bound for the ocean? Capture it, make rLDPE, then recycle it indefinitely? The idea became POLLAST!C, and it hinged on their three-rule definition of being “ocean-bound”: it had to have been abandoned, in areas with no formal waste management infrastructure, within 50 kilometres of a coastline.

Better Packaging Co. made courier bags, mailers, even labels, but they had never made flow-wrap before. This was going to be an adventure.

The first rLDPE Percasky made for us was from ocean-bound plastic in Indonesia. The three reels weighed 25 kilograms each, and to check them in she had to unpack her suitcase and wear her entire wardrobe through Customs and on to the plane. The good folk at Webstar ran a trial and it worked well on the press, but when they tested it in NZPost’s mail-sorting machine it came out looking like it had been mauled by a bear.

Percasky recycled that lot, went back to the drawing board, and three months later came back with another roll of film. This one survived both the press and mail sorter.

If you received this magazine in the mail, the plastic you peeled off was once on its way to the sea, was plucked out by an employee of the Better Packaging Company, recycled in a facility paying a living wage in a developing nation, to arrive in your letterbox, all using a fraction of the carbon of alternative materials.

Six years is a long time, but we’ve arrived in the right place. Next step is to scale the project so that all 10 million magazines shipped in New Zealand use recycled ocean-bound plastic. After that, we will try to close the loop, which means finding a scheme to return and recycle the wrappers, dramatically reducing waste, energy and carbon. That, I expect, may take another six years. 

James Frankham, Publisher