The name newave was not chosen by chance.

The newave idea for no petroleum was to be different for our community, for caring about the environment and create a movement of hope.

In breaking down the name into “new” and “wave”, you can see why we chose it.

New is for Newcastle, the place we live and love.

• New is for dissimilar, a new start and a point of difference.
• New is to become fresh, for a cleaner and safer environment.
• Wave is to be moved, a surged sensation or emotion connected to a change in thinking on products
• Wave is the physical action & movement of a community, in our case demanding better environmental product. 
• Wave is a transfer of energy created by a physical and emotional response to doing and being better.

Neither our balms, nor our tubes contain petroleum.

No plastic and no petroleum in our product and packaging means that no matter where they end up, they will not leach toxins into the environment.

No petroleum means no danger to the environment
through extraction, no danger to the environment or humans through refining, no added toxic chemicals and lower climate impact.

In choosing newave products, you are electing to end our reliance on petroleum based products.

Yes, just us two as founding and running newave.

We wanted to do this together and so created the formulations and sourced all packaging ourselves.

No investors means no obligations to anyone other than our customers and the planet.

Yes. When we decided to do this, we researched how to make lip-balms and then kept improving our formulations.

We made hundreds of formulations until we were
satisfied we got the right result.

We didn’t want to add ingredients that did nothing for your lips and so we don’t add stuff just to increase product shelf life or make it smell nice.

This is little challenging and so we have chosen not to make no overt branding claims (apart from explaining it a little here).

Clean can be argumentative. There is no specific or regulated definition of clean. We believe our product are clean to the best of our research and knowledge.

newave products don’t contain ingredients such as phthalates, FDA prohibited ingredients,
colours and any types of fragrances.

We understand a lot of products like to smell nice and add colours to look nice.
We don’t deny having a nice smelling balm of cream can be great, however our aim is to provide you the best product without surplus additives.

We don’t mind being different, in fact that is kind of the point. Many products contain
fossil based ingredients, and most are packed in fossil-based plastic. newave does
not.

Our products are clean, and our packaging is clean. Even our mailer bags and labels are
certified compostable.

We have worked very hard on our formulations and for balms, body lotion and hand cream (coming soon) and enlisted expertise for our production company to ensure we make clean products.

All this matters because we care who uses newave, and we know you care about you. It
goes to our saying, Love yourself, love your planet.

The main components are recycled bamboo and PHA. No petroleum and so no plastic.

The tubes are certified by the USDA (the US Government) as 95% biomass.

We need to break the reliance on petroleum based products as we all know how that is working out.

The tubes have been successfully third-party lab tested to ASTM D6400. ASTM D6400 is the US standard for industrial compostability.

Certification to compostable standards is within the lab testing stage right now.

The tubes are certified by the USDA (the US Government) as 95% biomass.

No. The tubes contain no harmful additives (such as BPA or phthalates) and additionally these tubes do not generate harmful microplastics at the end of life as they are fossil-based plastic free.

The tubes have been tested compliant to US California Prop 65 for heavy metals.

The tubes have been tested and passed OECD 301B testing, which includes plant
toxicity testing.

The tubes have also been third party tested to ASTM D6400,
which includes plant toxicity testing.

When compared to standard plastic, even the Australian Government says – “While many of the chemicals that are added to plastics are
useful and safe, some are chemicals of concern.

“These
chemicals have concerning properties—for example, some do not easily break down
and last for a long time in the environment, some are toxic, and some can build
up to high levels in animals”.

Firstly, all of our balm ingredients are non-toxic, contain no petroleum and so will not harm the environment in any way.

Depending upon the conditions within each landfill, the balms will just degrade away without environmental impact.

If newave tubes end up in landfill, they will slowly
degrade with little impact upon the environment as they contain no petroleum,
no fossil-based plastic and no toxins.

In landfill they are unlikely to experience requirements to degrade as quickly as they would in industrial composting.

Remember that unlike petroleum based plastic
tubes our tubes contain no toxic chemicals and so as they degrade they will not harm the planet or living organisms.

We believe so, as our tubes are not plastic (they are not made with petroleum).

They do not undergo the same chemical transformation to create regular plastic, which means there is no toxins that
can migrate from the tube to the lip-balm product.

Stay with us, as there is a lot of scientific information involved in this.

We understand this is an argumentative subject,
which is why the following statements on plastic are taken from the published scientific literature.

One of the biggest topics today is the possible impact of plastics upon the human endocrine system.

So, what is the endocrine system? The United States Environmental Protection agency says:

Endocrine systems, also referred to as hormone systems, are found in all
mammals, birds, fish, and many other species. Some examples of hormones
include:

Estrogens are the group of hormones responsible for female sexual development.

Androgens are responsible for male sex characteristics.

The thyroid gland secretes two main hormones, thyroxine and triiodothyronine, into the
bloodstream. These thyroid hormones stimulate all the cells in the body and control biological processes such as growth, reproduction,
development, and metabolism.

Just some of  published scientific research says:

 2024 - Chemicals Used in Plastic Materials: An Estimate of the Attributable
Disease Burden and Costs in the United States - Plastics
contribute substantially to disease and associated social costs in the United States, accounting for 1.22% of the gross domestic product. The costs of plastic pollution will continue to accumulate as long as exposures continue at
current levels.

2023 - A review of the endocrine disrupting effects of micro and nano plastic and their associated chemicals in
mammals - Endocrine toxicity induced by MPs is an emerging issue, despite the subject being rarely documented, there is growing evidence for ingested MPs bioaccumulation in mammalian tissues and
organs with deleterious outcomes including endocrine abnormalities, reproductive toxicity, gut microbiota dysbiosis, and defective immunological responses in rodents, rats and mice

2023 - Endocrine disruptors in plastics alter β-cell physiology and increase the risk of diabetes mellitus - In this review, we have summarized a significant number of cross-sectional epidemiological studies as well as meta-analyses that support the role of exposure to BPs and phthalates in increasing the prevalence of diabetes among
adults. 

2023 - The Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health - Coal
miners, oil workers and gas field workers who extract fossil carbon feedstocks for plastic production suffer increased mortality from traumatic injury, coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, silicosis,
cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer. 

We recommend you
check out the links. There are more people this research says plastics / petroleum impact negatively (including unborn and young children).

Let’s start with some having a dimple.

Our filling production is not fully automated. They don’t pass through a conveyor for filling, then cooling, then heating and cooling process. Fully automated production does this to remove imperfections in the balm.

Our process means the tube gets filled and then cool naturally.

As it cools the balm contracts and can create a dimple (or love-spot as we like to call it) above the tube spindle. It does not impact the balm quality.

Now, let’s talk about the tube colours.

They are made from natural bamboo and so there are slight colour differences.

The tubes are certified by the USDA (that’s the US Government) as 95% biomass. They are not chemically identical petroleum based plastic and so you get a tube that is as naturally unique.

We have been doing beach cleans regularly since May 2020 and have now completed over one hundred.

We mainly do these in our local area around Newcastle, however have also done them on holidays in Perth and Cairns.

You may wonder how such a small action by individuals
can make a difference, however when it comes to beach cleans a 2023 research project in Norway  “found
evidence that beach clean ups rapidly and dramatically reduce the amount of
microplastics in the environment”. 

Remember, whilst your single action or purchase may seem small in a worldwide view, your ripple effect across the world makes a huge difference to saving the planet. 

The ARL (Australian Recycling Label) is the only recycling label/logo approved by the Australian Government. This means that the product has been assessed to recycling methods available in Australia and New Zealand.

Other products displaying recycle logos mean they may not actually be recycled in Australian recycling facilities.

Only by using products displaying the ARL logo and disposing of them correctly can you be assured they will be recycled.

The Australian Council of Recycling has said of the frequently used Mobius Loop – “it does not mean the product
will be accepted for recycling as not all facilities can accept all potentially recyclable materials.

For more information please view arl.org.au

Our packaging boxes have passed verification as
recyclable in Australia through the ARL using the PREP system, however we have not
yet placed the logo on the boxes and so cannot technically display the logo yet.

Note: New Zealand has different technical standards
to Australia and because of the size of the balm packaging box (being too small) it is not technically accepted as recyclable in New Zealand. 

We do not and we are working with Leaping Bunny to obtain
their certification.

We do not claim to be Leaping Bunny certified yet.

We are working with the suppliers of ingredients for our upcoming products (Body
Lotion and Hand Cream) to make our full submission to Leaping Bunny.

To their credit they do not just “tick and flick” for
certification and so we still have some work to do.

FSC forest management certification confirms that the forest is being managed in a way that preserves biological diversity and benefits the lives of local people and workers, while ensuring it sustains
economic viability.

FSC-certified forests are managed to strict environmental, social and economic standards.

The packaging boxes are made from FSC certified wood.

Our mailers are certified both home and industrial compostable to Australian Standards (AS5810 and AS4736).

They cost more than standard plastic or paper mailers, however we believe compostable is best.

To see where you may be able to dispose outside of your garden or compost, we suggest you check here or here.

We use Hex Paper for wrapping your products.
Hex Paper is made from recycled paper.

We tape products with a tape certified to AS4736 (Australian Standard for Industrial Compostable).

In being able to dispose of the products at full circularity, the issue is not the product, it is a lack of infrastructure that makes it difficult to find industrial composting facilities. 

We have made many submissions to industry bodies, state Governments and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the
Environment and Water, calling for support to create more organic recycling (industrial composting) infrastructure. Infrastructure needs to catch up to innovation.

Yes. Our production partner has the following international certifications:

ISO22716 - Cosmetics – Good Manufacturing Practices

ISO9001 - Quality Management Systems

ISO14001 - Environmental Management Systems