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Paper Province have received funding to launch a test bed targeting fossil-free laminate, i.e. the protective barrier in packaging closest to the food. “Our motto is: let’s get rid of oil-based plastic, and get in with fossil-free materials,” says Peter Edberg, project manager at Paper Province.
The packaging market is a huge consumer of fossil-based plastics, accounting for 36 percent of total global usage, and a significant part consists of laminates. But most agree that that fossil-free packaging is the future. Nonetheless, packaging such as crisp bags and milk cartons have a protective laminate barrier closest to the food that is made of fossil-based plastic.
“Without this coating, the food inside will destroy the package” Peter Edberg explains.
Peter Edberg has been involved in a Fossil-free laminate test bed project since 2017. The project was recently granted an extended funding from Vinnova, to realize the learnings from the pre-study phase and open the test bed. The funding is granted to Paper Province, OptiPak, Promiko, RISE Bioeconomy, Innventia, Broby Grafiska Education and UMV Coating Systems in collaboration.
A test bed is an environment where organizations collaborate in developing, testing and introducing new products, services, processes or solutions.
“We offer a unique opportunity to test and demonstrate advanced bio-based laminates on a scale that radically reduces the step to full-scale commercial production. This is a unique offer likely to attract international companies active in the field of bioplastics.” Peter Edberg says.
This new test bed goes hand in hand with the initiative “Fossil-free Sweden” launched by the Swedish government in 2015. The initiative aims to make Sweden one of the first fossil-free welfare countries in the world. One goal is to make food packaging fossil-free by 2030. Paper Province and its co-actors are contributing to this (goal) by launching this project.
“This is an important step towards fossil-free laminates in packaging. We have the manufacturing machine to produce the laminate and we have companies on board that want to start using the fossil-free packaging,” Peter Edberg says.
The best bed is placed in three Swedish locations:
