Revolutionary New Sustainable Products

 7th January 2025 | By Anna Armstrong | Sustainability

Unlike blogs where they are talking about this sort of subject where they describe sustainable catering products – this blog is different.

We have stocked sustainable toilet rolls for a long time, including mini jumbo,  3 Ply, to 2 ply to Coreless, but we have taken it even further now! If you have a look at our website, every single paper product we stock is now EU Ecolabel, and we are incredibly proud of this.

 

We are always pushing boundaries here at Astral, and we are delighted to introduce a toilet roll with a difference. Dependent on supplier, our paper products are packaged differently. Some are wrapped in cardboard, others are wrapped in recycled plastic, and some handtowels (for example), are wrapped in both recycled plastic (the bundles of 250 towels), and then wrapped in cardboard.

 

Most of our toilet rolls are encased in recycled plastic, however this is sustainable to a certain degree,  however we have customers who were looking to up the ante in terms of sustainability.

 

They were looking for a sustainable toilet roll, EU Ecolabel, fast dissolve, really great quality… which was encased in cardboard – no plastic. This was a real challenge for us here, and as it was my account and I wanted to really please this customer, so I went all out to find this product.

 

I am delighted to say, we are now stocking this Sustainable Toilet Roll, that has a whopping 500 sheets (usual sheet is between 180 – 320), EU Ecolabel, fast dissolve (won’t block pipes), and it is of sufficient quality to be offered in one of the most expensive hotels in Scotland  - Impressive hey?

 

Introducing the Premium Compact Sustainable Toilet Roll. There are 12 per case, and this one really does offer everything to the discerning customer who has put sustainability at the top of the agenda.

Next up, we are now offering a hand towel that again is EU Ecolabel, zero plastic (not a sniff), totally sustainable, approved by the EU Eco Council, 3000 towels per box. This is the only hand towel we offer at this price point that ticks all of these boxes. Surprisingly, it is very difficult to get an economically priced hand towel that isn’t wrapped in recycled plastic that comes in white. Until now of course!

 

I give you our Z-Fold Handtowel – absolutely sustainable, from sustainable forests, that is EU Ecolabel and is of great quality.

Most excitingly, well I’m very excited about this – we are now offering entirely compostable cloths! Everything about this cloth is compostable!!

This cloth is certified as compostable and is certified to EN13432 for it’s compostability, and the fibres are PEFC certified sources. Even the bag it comes in is fully compostable. In fact the best way to dispose of this cloth and the wrapper is in your food waste, it will compost and return to the elements (nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide etc) it was formed of within 10-12 weeks!!

The cloth fibres are PEFC certified, so this cloth will still break down in landfill -  however the best way to break down the cloth and the wrapper is in your food waste.

See the first cloth of it’s kind here - Ecofibre Compostable Cloth x 50 – Available in green, red, yellow and blue

If you’d like to learn more about the wider compostable waste subject – which I personally find very interesting and a lot of people are misled about it, please have a look at this blog from Feb 24 – What should I do with my compostable cup?

 

Thanks for reading!

---

This blog was written by Anna Armstrong, Director of Sales and Operations at Astral. Please get in touch if there are any particular topics you would like us to talk about on the blog!