Hats off to Huhtamaki! The company is ‘doing its bit’ for vending at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
BY SUSANNAH RICE
As sponsor of Sparsholt College Hampshire’s 2014 RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden entry, Huhtamaki’s ‘Love Nature’ BioWare paper vending cups, complete with plant seedlings, will be ‘vended’ from a machine donated by Southampton-based company, Bettavend, to form one of the main areas of the garden at this year’s show.
Huhtamaki has long manufactured paper vending cups for the foodservice industry, and the innovative use of the vending machine within the garden at the prestigious RHS Chelsea Flower Show provides a fantastic opportunity to showcase a concept which many of us use on a day-to-day basis – whilst highlighting the use of Huhtamaki’s environmentally friendly BioWare packaging range throughout every element of the garden.
The garden designed by Sparsholt College Hampshire’s horticulture students, to be called ‘The Paper Chase’, has been created using compost made from Huhtamaki’s environmentally sustainable BioWare foodservice packaging range to showcase the process from tree to cup. The inclusion of the vending machine demonstrates the provision of drinks to customers, which many of us experience daily.
Cups from drinks purchased by students and staff at the College restaurant have been recycled, and then collected and composted off-site by local specialists The Woodhorn Group. Plants have then been grown in compost created from the disposable of BioWare paper cups, which have been composted at an open air composting facility in a twelve-week process.
The vending machine kindly donated by Bettavend was specifically chosen for its large glass frontage, which will provide maximum visibility of the plant seedlings being ‘vended’ during the Show. Furthermore, the location of the vending Company enhances the ‘local’ ethos of the garden’s creation – Huhtamaki, Bettavend, Sparsholt College and The Woodhorn Group are all situated in close proximity to each other in the South East of England.
The ‘Love Nature’ BioWare paper vending cups are part of the new-look compostable BioWare cup range, which have been redesigned to give the products a fresh, modern appearance whilst placing further emphasis on their green credentials. The range comprises hot and cold cups in a choice of sizes, as well as a 9oz paper vending cup.
The project is a fantastic way to illustrate the benefits and importance of recycling and composting, and demonstrates how Huhtamaki has managed to ‘close the loop’ by composting its cups; using the compost to grow the very plants that will be used to make more cups in the future.
The garden carries a strong environmental message, which Huhtamaki hopes will enthuse and educate everyone with the merits of sustainability, composting and waste recycling.
