The ubiquitous plastic water bottle is under fire. Something like 30 billion of them are consumed worldwide each year—that's a lot of petroleum-based resin. And each bottle of prestige water imported from France, for example, uses 2 oz of oil just for transportation.

What's an eco-conscious packager to do? AQUA2GO from New Orleans-based Esgee Enterprises LLC (www.wateronthego.com) says it has one solution: the “water box.” “While we're not the first company to use aseptic packaging for water, we are proud to be the first company in the US to design a water box for, and market to, all people for all purposes,” says Esgee founder and president Stacey Griffin.

Unlike bottled water, 250-ml AQUA2GO boxes have a five-year shelf life from their Tetra Brik™ packaging (www.tetrapak.com), and 74 percent of the boxes consist of sustainable paper materials. AQUA2GO's other claim to fame appears to be its status as the first boxed water to gain national distribution via Tree of Life, a natural/organic/gourmet foods distributor.

“The packaging is essential in creating the overall impression of a fun, festive feeling,” says Kim Rahbek Hansen, chief executive officer of Denmark's Sticks 'n' Sushi restaurant chain, “both for the customers and on the street, where it's an ambassador for our brand.”

Hansen is talking about the company's new take-home sushi box, intended to put a smile on customers' faces, with fish cut-outs on the handle and arranged in a decorative pattern on the packaging. An extra creasing makes it easy to insert and remove the trays of sushi, and the black package interior and black tray form a backdrop for the restaurant's artful sushi.

Converted by folding-carton maker Jens Johansen A/S of Denmark, the box was designed by Pais Design and uses Frövi White paperboard supplied by Korsnäs (www.froviwhite.com) in two weights—380 and 410 gsm. The substrate is a four-layer virgin-fiber board, coated on both sides, with a high whiteness for good quality printing.

“We used to use Frövi Bright, but since we're covering the entire reverse side with black ink, a white-coated reverse side gives us a better, deeper black,” says Benedikte Pais, managing director of Pais Design. “The packaging comes in four sizes. For the largest, we have been able to go up to 410 gsm, meaning we're using an even stronger board.” The large take-home packaging can hold up to 6-½ lbs.

Making its debut last month at Australia's WineTech trade fair, the new VinPorter™ corrugated carton from Amcor Fibre Packaging (www.amcorfibre.com.au) uses a patented one-piece design and perforation system to rapidly transform into a six-bottle carry pack. The carton provides for unusual retail displays that encourage consumers to “mix n' match” a choice of similarly branded wines to increase multiple-bottle purchases, Amcor says.

The VinPorter design lets it function as a shipper, point-of-sale display and consumer carry pack all-in-one. The construction includes an integrated divider and carry-handle; perforations to allow faster retail-display assembly without the need to cut open the box or unpack the bottles; and lower material usage and manufacturing cost than using a separate carry pack, which helps reduce environmental impact as well.