This is a follow up post to Pill Pack/Blister Pack/Bubble Pack. I’ll start from the zero waste angle and lead into health.
One of the items my family has deemed essential for our health, especially our gut health which can affect many other aspects of health, are probiotics. My husband, myself, our four year old son, and even the dogs get probiotics.
We were taking two different types of probiotics. They have different strains in each one and my husband’s research led us to believe this combination and these brands would be beneficial. As I mentioned in Pill Pack/Blister Pack/Bubble Pack, while these blister packs come in paper boxes, and the box can be recycled, the blister packs themselves cannot easily be recycled because they are composite items. Composite items are made of a mix of materials, here they are plastic-coated aluminum, a mix of plastics, or plastic that looks like metal. We were going through so many blister packs that while I could and maybe should have bought a TerraCycle All-in-One box, I was hoping to find a greener way and one that was cheaper (TerraCycle boxes are relatively expensive). These two brands were effective, but I was hoping we could find an effective probiotic that was more environmentally conscious. My son takes probiotic gummy bears instead of capsules by one of these companies and while the plastic lid and bottle of the probiotic gummy bears are curbside recyclable, there is a safety/moisture seal on the bottle that has to go in the trash.
Safety Seal with edge residue 
Plastic seal in addition to interior safety seal. 
Another example of a safety/moisture seal.
I personally hate most interior safety/moisture seals. They usually have to go in the trash and not all of the product comes off the edge of the opening. I’m always worried safety seal remains are contaminating the recycling stream but it’s such a small aspect when there are so many larger issues I haven’t researched this yet. Possible contamination is another reason I try to avoid things with interior safety/moisture seals under lids if I can. The outside safety seal is usually thin plastic which could theoretically be recycled in the future. It’s not stretchy/poke-your-finger-through-it plastic so it’s not supposed to go in the plastic/bag film recycling stations. The gummy bears are also still supporting and prolonging single-use virgin plastic which we try to get away from if we can find a more sustainable option.
Luckily for us my husband is passionate about researching health topics for our family and learned about Seed’s DS-01™ Daily Synbiotic. Seed is a combination of probiotics, which we had been taking, and prebiotics which I personally had never heard of. Seed has 24 different strains included while most probiotics only have a few. Seed was engineered not to require refrigeration or blister packs. We have tried refrigerated probiotics a few times, but as I recall they weren’t as effective as pills and also tended to have safety seals that were composite materials. A lot of yogurt/drinkable products have lids/seals that look like they’re aluminum and they may in fact be alumnimum but they are also coated in a thin layer of plastic.
The Welcome Kit 
Seed’s sustainability is amazing. My husband was so proud of himself for finding both a proven probiotic and one that is earth-friendly. He did receive lots of kisses for his hard work. The photos above are from the Welcome Kit. It comes in a compostable Biodegradable Algae Paper box sealed with paper tape, with a compostable Biodegradable PaperFoam tray. The daily bottle (short wide jar) and travel bottle (tall skinny jar) are green-tinted glass with green plastic lids. If you wanted or needed to, you could easily recycle both bottle components. A reminder that Seed does not need refrigerated so I keep my bottle in the bathroom drawer to take first thing in the morning with a lot of water. My husband keeps his in a kitchen cabinet.
The Monthly Refill 
The Monthly Refill shown above comes in a Biofilm Refill Protection Pouch which “protects against oxygen and moisture. It’s 100% home-compostable and will break down in 18 months or less” and meets “EU 13432 compost standards.” The pouch (we get two pouches: one for me and one for my husband) is padded by Dissolvable Corn-Based Barrier Foam which I usually put in my curbside compost cart. I’m not a fan of melting this stuff in the yard or sink though it could be handled this way [I get ants in the yard (queen of attracting ants here) and I have to poke it down the sink] so I just compost it. I don’t have any reuse needs for it either though reuse is always a great idea. Both the pouch and foam come in a FSC-certified 100% recyclable mailer. All these items are described in more detail on Seed’s sustainability page, which is where I’ve taken the material names and quotes from.
We also like that Seed is on a subscription plan so we don’t have to remember to purchase probiotics or calculate out how many boxes we need to buy during the next shopping trip or online order. If you travel, the monthly refill usually comes a few weeks early so you will have your supply ready for your next trip.
On an efficacy note, Seed is significantly more effective than the combination of two or more brands we were using (sometimes we added in a third probiotic during bouts of constipation that was geared more towards that). Our gut health obviously improved when we switched over to Seed. My intestinal gas issues, occasional digestive pain, and bad breath went away for the most part. Seed isn’t a magic pill but it helped a lot of my issues go away or become addressable. My asthma may have even improved a bit too; lung functions tests improved after the transition with no other obvious life changes. The sustainability of their brand was a bonus. Sustainability and their science got us in the door, but the product itself is keeping us here. Seed gives you a fighting chance against other factors that may still be in play like if you are eating enough fiber, avoiding foods that can exacerbate poor health and digestion, etc. It’s part of your toolbox, not your cure-all if that makes sense. Please remember that plastic can have hormone and health disrupting abilities so anything you can do to get away from probiotics that have been sitting on shelves and in warehouses for who knows how long in plastic bottles and in plastic/metal packets seems like a healthier choice to make. We’ve gone over the greener aspects of switching products.
Have you tried Seed? Have you found probiotics that you like that are a sustainable choice and also effective for digestive health? Please share your experiences.
@seed #seed #probiotic #prebiotic #supplement #sustainable #betterchoices #lessplastic #compostable #recyclable #guthealth #gutflora #healthylifestyle #proudofmyhubby #newyearnewyou
Greener, Easier
A note on old pills and prescriptions from alittlemore.green’s tab Where Do I Donate/Recycle?:
Drugs: human and animal chemicals may go to Prescription Drug Take-Back Days. You may also dispose of drugs at permanent kiosk sites per the days, times, and locations listed at http://www.austintexas.gov/drugs.
If you want to responsibly dispose of drugs sooner and at your convenience you may buy a pre-paid mailer envelope for about $3 in the pharmacy section of stores such as CVS, Walgreens, Target, or Costco. Please do not flush anything but toilet paper down the toilet.
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