Why we chose plastic bottles
A difficult decision
When I founded I DO Bio, I faced a big challenge: Should we bottle our juices in glass or plastic bottles?
Of course, glass sounded like the best choice at first - more environmentally friendly, higher quality, more stylish. Many juice bars in my hometown of New York use glass bottles, and I·DO was originally going to be a juice bar itself. But when we decided to sell our juices online, the decision became even more complicated.
Glass is (unfortunately) not the solution
Put yourself in our shoes: We send our juices chilled by express delivery so that they arrive fresh the next day. Glass bottles weigh significantly more than plastic bottles. This means:
🚛 Higher energy consumption during transport → More CO₂ emissions
📦 More expensive shipping costs → Not economically viable
⚠️ Fragile → High risk of breakage during shipping
But the biggest problem: Our cold-pressed juices go through HPP (High Pressure Processing) to ensure a 30-day shelf life. Glass bottles would not be able to withstand this pressure - they would simply shatter.
A shelf life of just three days would not be feasible for our concept. Our customers - especially those on a juice cleanse - rely on their juices staying fresh for several days or even two weeks.
Why plastic is the best option?
We use BPA-free, recyclable PET bottles (polyethylene terephthalate).
✅ No harmful plasticizers such as BPA
✅ Never heated or chemically treated
✅ Recyclable & lightweight for a lower carbon footprint
Yes, plastic is not perfect - but in our situation it is the more sustainable choice. We avoid unnecessary environmental impacts from excessive transport emissions and unnecessary breakage. And most importantly, we enable more people to enjoy high-quality, 100% organic, cold-pressed juice.
Conclusion: The mission counts
In a perfect world, glass would be as light as plastic - but we do not live in a perfect world. Politics remains opaque, the food industry continues to rely on additives, and large corporations conceal their environmental footprint.
We had to make a compromise to advance our mission: to provide more people with fresh, unprocessed, organic-certified juices.
So: keep using our bottles or recycle them. And above all – juice responsibly!
Stay fresh,
Alex
