Overview
When you're sitting at a bar, sipping a cocktail and enjoying its delicious flavours, you're usually just thinking about how great it tastes. Something you're probably not pondering is what happens to the fruit that makes your beverage so zesty. Once you're done drinking, what's next for those slices of lemon, wedges of orange and other edible cocktail ingredients and garnishes?
Wonder no more, cocktail lovers — New Zealand-based vodka company 42BELOW can not only answer that question, but they're helping make your favourite concoctions more sustainable. Rounding up many a lemon, piece of fruit and even a few olives, they're turning yesterday's cocktail waste into today's hand washing liquid. Prepare to lather up with 42BELOW Recycled Cocktail Lemons Eco Soap, aka the world's first hand soap made from recycled cocktail fruit.
The initiative first launched in December last year, with 13 venues in Sydney, two places in Melbourne and a further two on the Gold Coast jumping on board. Fast forward two months and drinkers at the likes of Darlinghurst's This Must be The Place, Melbourne CBD's The Carlton, Surfer's Paradise's elsewhere and Auckland's Mea Culpa, your cocktail habit is now environmentally friendly.
To date, they've already collected 400 kilograms of fruit waste, then transformed those discarded morsels then into soap. In just a few weeks, 20,000 sachets and 400 bottles of liquid soap have been created — or 3200 cocktails, because that's everyone's preferred method of measurement.
42BELOW is in the process of signing up more bars around Australia and New Zealand, with those that join the fold then receiving their soapy goodness for free. Yes, pubs, watering holes and boozy hangouts can recycle their fruit wastage and keep patrons' hands lemony-fresh for zilch, while everyone downing cocktails can feel extra great about ordering their next fruity beverage.