Environment

St Ives Music & Multimedia has created eco-friendly packaging for Warner Bros' The 11th Hour DVD documentary.

The documentary, produced and presented by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, explores the impact that man and machine have had on the environment and Warner Bros was keen to ensure that the packaging did not conflict with the film's ethical message.

St Ives chose chipboard made from 100% post-consumer waste supplied by Smurfit Kappa to give the outer casing a natural look.

Dutch firm PaperFoam provided the biodegradable DVD tray made from paper, cornstarch and potato.

St Ives Music & Multimedia special projects manager Martin Still said: "It was critical that the packaging for this documentary reflected the gravity of the subject matter, so making the DVD tray and case 100% biodegradable was the most significant way of achieving this."

As the tray was lighter than its plastic equivalent, the outer casing was upgraded to double thickness to give the box a more solid structure.

The whole project was developed, trialled and tested in-house at St Ives' Crayford design studio, where the team also created an envelope lock closure on the back of the DVD box that simply folds into the body of the packaging. All components are recyclable apart from the disc.

St Ives Music & Multimedia has previously used this type of packaging for a K T Tunstall music CD.

The packaging was printed on a KBA 41405 six-colour press using vegetable-based inks and finished using a Bobst Spanthera die cutter and Fuego gluer.

St Ives Music & Multimedia supplies print, packaging and promotional materials to the European home entertainment industry from its manufacturing sites in the UK and Holland. It is part of the St Ives Group.