Did you know that every year more than 1 billion plastic phone cases are sold? With phone companies constantly releasing new models every year, this means a new phone case each time a new phone comes out, which creates a lot of waste. Phone cases are essential for protecting our phones from drops, scratches, and wear and tear. Plus, they're a cool way to personalise your phone. The solution to all this waste? Compostable phone cases!
Pela Compostable Phone Cases
Pela phone cases are vegan, eco-friendly, and 100% compostable! They are also free of lead, cadmium, BPA, and phthalates – both safe for the planet and us! They are also phone friendly, being military-grade with a six-foot drop rating. No worrying about drops or scratches here! They are made of biopolymers and Canadian Prairie flax shive, and third party certified. The best part about them? They are designed to compost within six months! They come in a range of models and colours and currently are designed for iPhone, Samsung, Google Pixel.
Pela Biodegradable Sunglasses
Pela also have a range of beautiful sunglasses and blue light glasses, which are made from a biodegradable polymer and without metal hinges. Even the lenses completely break down! The sunglasses offer full UVA/UVB protection, and the blue light glasses protect against the blue light spectrum that our phone and laptop screens emit. With the Sulu and Bonvito styles to choose from and a wide range of colours, being eco-friendly has never looked this good!
Pela Accessories
Pela also stocks AirPod cases, Apple Watch Bands, and accessories for your phones, such as phone grips, card holders, and zero waste screen protectors. They definitely have you covered in every department!
Pela's Commitment To The Environment
Pela is a company that is committed to reducing and preventing global waste, in order to create a waste-free future. This started back in 2010 when their founder, Jeremy Lang, was on a family vacation in Hawaii and his kids dug up plastic while playing on the beach. He was shocked and decided to do something about it. Now, twenty-one years later, Pela has enabled over half a million people to keep more than 142,213 kgs of waste out of landfill.
Their four main values are the four Cs – Community, Creativity, Consciousness, and Courage. Pela is committing to a culture that builds a vibrant community, while fostering creativity to inspire innovation, living with awareness and consciousness of the impact of our choices, and embracing courage by taking action despite uncertainty.
Offsetting Carbon Emissions
Pela has also committed to offsetting the previous year's entire footprint. They have designed their company to produce 25% less carbon emissions, 35% less water usage, and 70% less waste production. They also utilize renewable resources as much as possible.
What’s more, they are streamlining transportation routes by adding distribution centres in Canada and Europe and helping manufacturing facilities shift to renewable power sources and improve the efficiency of their operations. Lastly, they are continuing to promote the Pela 360 Program globally to decrease product end-of-life waste, which we’ll talk more about later!
Biodegradable vs. Compostable - What's the difference?
Here’s what Pela says about biodegradable and compostable materials:
- Biodegradable refers to a material breaking down with the help of microorganisms. To be labelled a biodegradable plastic, there is no time limit set on when the product breaks down and these plastics CAN leave behind toxic residue.
- Compostable refers to a material capable of breaking down into carbon dioxide, water, and biomass at the same rate as cellulose. Compostable plastic must also disintegrate and become indistinguishable in the compost and CANNOT leave any toxic material behind.
This is why it’s important to choose compostable over biodegradable when you can!
More On Composting
Did you know that compostable products won’t break down in a landfill? This is why it’s so important to ensure that your compostable products are put into an environment where they can properly break down.
Compostable products need air, moisture, and sunlight to break down properly, and this isn’t something that you get in landfills. Once your compostable product has broken down, it leaves no toxic materials behind, and can help to grow new plants! How amazing!
Unfortunately, it can take over 1000 years for plastic to break down, and even then, it still isn’t gone forever but turns into microplastics floating in the ocean. Less than 5% of all plastic gets recycled, and everything else ends up in landfill. This is why it’s so important to choose compostable, and ensure they are given the right environment to break down in!
Pela 360
In addition to reducing waste, Pela has also started the initiative, Pela 360. This gives products a second or third life, before going to the compost. Not only does Pela reuse their own products, but they also take other companies’ plastic waste! They believe in taking responsibility for their products throughout their entire life cycle, to create a low-carbon emitting, sustainable, regenerative, circular responsible economy.
If you have an old Pela case that you no longer use, send it to us through our Recycle & Save program and once we have a box full of old Pela cases, we'll send them to Pela to break down and reuse!
Now that you know a little bit more about this fantastic, sustainable company, which phone case will you choose? Browse the whole Pela collection online now at Flora & Fauna.
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