"greenbox" news and stories

Adding to the (occasional) guilt of finishing off a greasy, cheese-laden pizza is that awkwardly large, hard-to-trash pizza box -- do you bend it? Rip it into pieces? Leave it for someone else to deal with in the morning?

Whole Foods will be breaking this vicious cycle with the newly designed GreenBox, made to sustainably package, serve and store their take-out brick-oven pizza. Announced today by makers ECOvention, LLC, the boxes are manufactured from 100% recycled cardboard and are said to replace the need for paper plates (for serving), as well as plastic wrap or tin foil (for storage). The company realized that a standard 14-inch pizza box could breakdown into smaller reusable compartments, which could then be recycled more easily.

What's their secret? Clever perforation.

Leftover pizza is all good and well -- until you realize there's no room in the fridge for a bulky box that accommodates but a couple measly slices. But eco-friendly GreenBox has revolutionized the container, in a version that condenses into smaller sizes, breaks off into individual serving plates, and, best of all, is made from 100-percent recycled paper.

William Walsh, 38, came up with the idea back in his college football years. Fitted in a body cast after having broken his femur, he and his friends were watching the game one Sunday when a friend dripped pizza grease down his shirt. In typical college fashion, Walsh and his roommates "would basically use disposable plates since no one would wash the dishes," he says. "There was a pizza box on the table and I ripped it up and threw everyone in the room a plate. The room got really quiet and my friends were like, 'You need to do something with this!' "