The latest developments in materials, feedstocks and processes that are transforming the way many conventional products are made and packaged — and eliminating their negative impacts
While companies around the world continue to innovate to find solutions to our ‘plastic problem’ — from creating biodegradable plant-based plastics to compete with their conventional counterparts to developing depolymerization processes to degrade said counterparts — another solution could exist in the belly of a worm.
Nestlé UK and Unilever are among organizations coming together on a new project aiming to improve the recyclability of flexible packaging products, in the hope of pushing the resource industry closer towards a circular economic approach.
A group of corporate and NGO leaders today released a new tool for assessing leadership in corporate chemicals management.The Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) provides the first-ever common metric of its kind for publicly benchmarking corporate chemicals management and profiling leadership companies. The CFP will enable purchasers to preferentially select suppliers and investors to integrate chemical risk into their sustainability analyses and investments. Its results enable brands to market their progress and success in using safer chemicals.
BASF and recycled cardboard company Schuster have announced they are working on a solution for a combined migration and grease barrier on recycled cardboard.The biopolymer ecovio® PS 1606 is applied to recycled cardboard in an extrusion coating process. This enables the proportion of recycled paper fibers in fast food packaging to be increased while simultaneously making it industrially compostable. The polymer coating applied to the cardboard is several times thinner than a human hair, but provides the packaging with good protection against potential migration of undesired substances while also offering high greaseproofness and liquid tightness. This cardboard is more than 90 percent biobased, recyclable and industrially compostable.
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has announced it is developing an affordable and environmentally friendly alternative for polystyrene from PLA bioplastic, which is derived from organic sources.Although expanded polystyrene (EPS) is currently used all over the world as a light packaging and insulation material, it poses a significant waste problem. The annual production volume of EPS is 5 to 6 million tons per year, and the non-biodegradable material typically ends up on waste tips or is disposed of by burning, which results in toxic compounds.
The GW4 Alliance—a consortium of four leading research universities in the South West of England and Wales—has announced a new project to clean up water from a Cornish tin mine using algae to harvest the precious heavy metals and produce biofuel at the same time.Researchers from universities in Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter, in collaboration with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), are now working with the Coal Authority and Veolia to take untreated mine water samples from Wheal Jane tin mine in Cornwall into the laboratory and grow algae in them. The research will explore whether algae is effective in removing materials such as arsenic and cadmium from the mine water.
GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition announced this week that Plum Organics is the latest company to join its How2Recycle Label program. Plum joins 30 other participating companies — including most recently, Kellogg and McDonald’s — committed to educating consumers on packaging recyclability by providing clear on-package instructions.
A recently discovered form of carbon graphite has a completely unexpected property that scientists say could revolutionize the development of renewable energy and electric cars.According to results published in the journal Nature, researchers at the University of Manchester have discovered that graphene — a one-atom-thick layer of graphite — allows positively charged hydrogen atoms (protons) to pass through it, despite being completely impermeable to all other gases. This could have amazing implications for the efficiency of fuel cells and other hydrogen-based technologies as they require a barrier that only allows protons to pass through.
Novelis’ recently released Fiscal Year 2014 sustainability report shows the aluminum rolling and recycling giant making significant investments and strides to advance the circular economy and increase the sustainability of its business, the aluminum industry and its broader value chain.
Carbios, a French green chemistry company specializing in technologies dedicated to the recovery of plastic waste and the production of bio-polymers, recently announced that it has successfully managed to depolymerize 90 percent of polylactic acid (PLA) material — a thermoplastic aliphatic polyester derived from renewable resources, commonly used in everything from chip bags to toothpaste tubes — in only 48 hours, using its cutting-edge enzymatic process.
In its just-released 2014 sustainability report, SC Johnson details progress on its environmental goals — including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50 percent and manufacturing waste by 71 percent since 2000 — as well as significant advancements in ingredient transparency through its SC Johnson Greenlist™ process.
AkzoNobel has joined forces with SuikerUnie, Rabobank, Deloitte, Investment and Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands (NOM), Groningen Seaports, and the Province of Groningen to investigate the possibility of producing chemicals from beet-derived sugar feedstock.The parties have asked Deloitte to perform a feasibility study to provide an independent critical review and economic assessment on the viability of several business cases for commercial production in the Delfzijl chemical cluster in the Netherlands.
This week, LiquiGlide Inc. — creator of a coating for the insides of food containers that helps coax out every last drop — released survey results that clearly illustrate consumers' intense dislike of product waste.
While listening to the radio in New York City a while back I heard an ad for a ‘chemical free’ mattress.What is a ‘chemical free’ mattress? There is no such thing. In fact, like all of our consumer products, all humans, animals, and minerals are made up of chemical molecules. Some molecules are made by nature, think wood or cotton or biomaterials (grass, bamboo), and others are made synthetically (or by man). By taking what nature has given us, companies turn biomaterials, oil, natural gas, salt, minerals, etc. into the beneficial and innovative products we use today. There is no way to avoid chemicals.There are no ‘chemical free’ products, period. Since chemical molecules are part of everything, we need to understand them. So how do we go about this process?
Chemists at the University of Birmingham have found a new way to make nanostructured carbon using the waste product sawdust, according to research published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Green Chemistry.By cooking sawdust with a thin coating of iron at 700 degrees centigrade, the researchers found they can create carbon with a structure made up of several tiny tubes. These tubes are one thousand times smaller than an average human hair.
AkzoNobel has launched an additive for road salt to help protect against frost damage and improve driving safety.Inspired by the ability of certain animals to withstand cold and prevent ice forming in their bodies, Ecosel® AsphaltProtection is a fully biodegradable additive for de-icing brine. It works by preventing the water trapped inside the asphalt pores from turning into hard ice. It encourages the formation of slushy ice, which is mechanically weaker than the asphalt and substantially reduces the risk of damage. Slowing the freezing process results in soft, slushy ice, rather than hard, abrasive ice. After in-depth research and development, the product is available to customers in Italy and the Netherlands.
Isn’t it great when a simpler solution makes the most sense? This week, Marks and Spencer (M&S) rolled out a much less aggravating alternative to the dreaded plastic and metal ties traditionally used to secure products inside packaging, particularly that of toys.The company told edie.net that its patent-pending 'PaperTies' lock products in place and, while strong enough to withstand transport and other wear and tear, are easily torn by the buyer, making receiving a new toy a much less frustrating experience for its recipient. And unlike the standard plastic and metal version, the 100% FSC-certified PaperTies are easily recyclable.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company — the Ohio-based parent company of a global family of companies that specialize in the design, manufacture, marketing and sales of passenger car and light truck tires — has completed tire builds using rubber derived from guayule plants and new guayule-related materials. The company says the tires are being evaluated by Cooper’s technical team using rigorous wheel, road and track tests, which are ongoing, but to date suggest tire performance that is at least equal to tires made of components derived from traditional rubber, derived from the Hevea rubber plant.
Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble has made a qualified commitment that 90 percent of its packaging will be recyclable by 2020. The commitment came the day before an October 14 vote on a shareholder proposal filed by shareholder advocacy group As You Sow asking the company to phase out unrecyclable packaging. The proposal won significant support — 25 percent of shares voted, representing more than $35 billion of investments, according to a P&G filing yesterday with the Securities & Exchange Commission.
Solazyme, producer of renewable oil and bioproducts, has won the 2014 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for its breakthrough platform technology to produce sustainable oils and products from microalgae for commercial use in a wide range of industries.