For years, LATHER has worked to reduce our environmental footprint, initiating in-store recycling programs, using renewable resources, and offsetting our carbon emissions. Going one step further, we have begun transitioning all of our plastic packaging – from bottles to tubes to jars – to plastic made with EcoPure, which significantly accelerates natural biodegradation in a microbial rich environment.

What do we mean by “biodegradable”?
To say something “biodegrades” means it’s metabolized by microbes. Microbes will eat just about anything—except for plastic. That’s why plastic can last 1,000 years or longer - it’s great for packaging products, but bad for the environment.

How does it work?
We blend an FDA-compliant, non-toxic additive called EcoPure into our containers. In short, EcoPure is an organic compound that, when added in small amounts, makes plastic attractive to microbes and enhances its biodegradation in microbial rich environments such as are present in biologically active landfills.

What does plastic with EcoPure look like?
EcoPure does not affect the look or feel of plastic - you won’t even notice the difference. Containers look and feel just like our old packaging and won’t affect your product.

What is the shelf life of plastic treated with EcoPure?
The shelf life is the same as plastic that is not treated with EcoPure. Accelerated biodegradation occurs only when EcoPure treated plastic enters an anaerobic, microbial-rich environment.

Is EcoPure safe?
EcoPure is an organic compound that meets international standards for safety and biodegradation, and is FDA compliant.

Independent testing
Don’t take our word for it! We went through a rigorous research and testing process to verify that this technology works the way it claims to work with our products. Accredited third-party laboratories, using established national testing methods set by the materials standards organization ASTM International, found that our packaging biodegrades in microbial-rich environments at significantly faster rates than untreated plastic.

(For those science buffs among you: we measured biodegradation rates of our plastic packaging treated with EcoPure under the ASTM Standard Test Method D5511, used to measure “anaerobic biodegradation of plastic materials under high-solids anaerobic-digestion conditions.”)