Build a Better Bottle— From Paper

Seeking an eco-friendly detergent bottle, California mom Julie Corbett created her own.

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Julie Corbett, a California financial adviser, was wandering the aisles of her local supermarket in 2007, looking for liquid laundry soap in an environmentally friendly container. Her elementary school daughters were learning about recycling and had begun whipping the Corbett household into recycling shape. “Your kids come home and become the enforcers,” recalled Corbett. They were even weighing her trash.

But she was having a tough time finding an alternative that fit the bill. So, Corbett decided to take on the challenge herself.

The granddaughter of Canadian paper mill workers, Corbett had grown up with the sounds and smells of paper, and unwrapping a smartphone slickly wrapped in paper gave her an idea. “I thought if we could manufacture paper in curves, could we make a bottle of it? It was a long journey.”

The result, two years later, was a molded cardboard bottle wrapped around a thin plastic liner. The cardboard gives shape and strength to the package, and the liner is the waterproof container that holds the liquid.