1. Weight
Glass is heavy to transport, so it requires higher energy and fuel consumption. The production journey of glass is a long and highly consumable process, and one that we wanted to minimize. In addition, when a shipment of product leaves our warehouse, it often does not go directly to an end user, as Bioelements creates products for consumers as well as spa professionals who may purchase from industry distributors. Therefore a Bioelements product may have several shipping stops before it arrives at its final destination. This process is entirely dependent on various 3rd party distributors, fulfillment centers, and shipping carriers. Since we cannot control their shipping or warehousing operations, we do know that we can lessen our own impact on transportation loads and minimize our carbon footprint.
2. Fragility
Glass is fragile, so it needs extra packing materials to protect it. Each year during extreme cold weather snaps across the country, shipments frequently arrived shattered, and customers naturally complained. This required us to ship replacements, doubling the process.
3. Safety
We often heard from consumers who accidentally dropped their glass jars onto tiled bathroom floors, which shattered dangerously. This safety concern absolutely could not be ignored.
4. Performance
Another common complaint we needed to address with the previous glass packaging was the inability to fully dispense all of a formula’s contents, as well as product leaking. Over the past few years, we’ve experimented with introducing select new innovations in airless packaging with tight-fitting nozzles and pumps (not glass) – including Plump Start, Remineralist Daily Lotion and Age Activist Clinical Youth Serum. Customers experienced proper packaging functionality, and the risk of these formulas shattering was eliminated.