Renewable materials instead of oil
Plastics account for roughly five percent of the world’s oil consumption and around 40 % of plastic is used packaging. Only one percent of all plastic globally produced is bio-based. There is a lot of potential in the packaging industry to become more sustainable
The Technical Research Centre of Finland announced a new method to produce plastic packaging with a reduction of up to 70 % of carbon emissions through the application of renewable raw materials. The bio-based PGA polymer in the package makes packaging more durable than the traditional plastic packaging and it biodegrades faster than most common bio-plastic PLA.
All Harlin, Research Professor at VTT claims that bio-plastics represent a concrete step toward a bio-economy”. Bio-plastics are opening up new possibilities for the Finnish forest industry. The global volume of the packaging industry is earmarked at around EUR 500 billion and the markets are growing rapidly, for instance in China and India.
TextileFuture welcomes the day where sustainable textile based packaging (based on cellulose material) will follow in the not too distant time ahead.