Reducing the amount of plastic packaging
There are many initiatives to handling plastic packaging. From recycling to collection schemes. Still, every year the EU generates 15.8 million metric tons of plastic waste resulting from food packaging alone and 12 million tons of plastic make its way into the world’s oceans each year. So what if we tackle the core problem? Plastic itself?
There are many initiatives working on finding the solution for replacing plastic. One of them is the promising start up Cellugy.
Compostable packaging made from sugar
EcoFLEXY is the material responsible for the foundation of Cellugy. It is 100% bio-based, derived from sugar (e.g. surplus sugar), biodegradable, and recyclable. The material can be used in combination with paper and cardboard as a coating barrier to develop a mono-material packaging that can be recycled in the current waste management system, unlike current multi-material packaging.
Cellugy’s biomaterial has a unique feature: It uses locally sourced raw material by optimizing fruit surplus and its waste from local farmers in Denmark. Any plant that contain sugar, can be used from us to pursue a packaging with the same features as conventional plastics (i.e. transparent, flexible and resistant to temperature & water), but harmless to the environment. If compared to oil-based plastics, the carbon footprint and energy consumption through Cellugy’s material can be reduced up to 60-80 %. Earth has limited assimilative capacity and thus products, components and materials should be kept at their highest utility.
Furthermore, Cellugy’s biomaterial is home compostable: you can simply throw the packaging away in your ordinary compost heap or organic waste bin; it will disintegrate and break down to fertile compost even at room temperature. They ensure an effective after-use economy when the packaging material disposed properly.
The difference between biobased and biodegradable
Not all bio-based plastics are biodegradable, and not all biodegradable plastics are bio-based. Understanding this difference is key! Bio-based refers to the origin of the raw materials used to produce the plastic, while biodegradable means that it can be decomposed by living organisms, such as bacteria and enzymes, for example.
To utterly understand the carbon footprint of a bioplastic, a whole analysis of its life cycle must be considered. What is it made of? Is it biodegradable? Is it recyclable? How much energy is needed for its proper disposal? The list of questions to be answered is rather long and specific for each material on a case-by-case basis.
Are you looking for a biobased or biodegradable packaging? We can help you find the right packaging coating specialist to design and produce an environmentally friendly packaging coating specifically for your product.
Why multi material packaging coatings are so hard to recycle
Multi-material packaging consists of a mixture of materials, such as paper or cardboard with aluminum, polyethylene or other plastics as coatings. These coatings act as a barrier against oxygen and moisture, protecting the packaged goods and extending their shelf life. However, such a diverse composition makes the packaging unrecyclable due to the difficulty of separating the single components, because each material has different characteristics and recycling properties.
These materials can therefore not be directly recycled, and separating materials is not always an option. Moreover, recycling mixed material packaging involves more complex processes, which makes it more costly. However, mono-materials, which are packaging composed of only one material, can be easily classified for recycling and gives it a high (if not full) recovery level.