Seeing the plastic through the trees: Woodly eyes household bioplastic rollouts in 2021
08 Jul 2020 --- Plastic cannot be replaced but it can be redesigned, affirms Woodly, the innovators behind a new type of plastic derived from softwood cellulose that mimics the functionalities of conventional fossil-based plastics. Woodly is touted as a carbon-neutral material that can be recycled in the plastic recycling stream or combusted if necessary. In the latest developments, the Finnish startup is collaborating with Kiilto, a manufacturer of chemical industry products, to develop Woodly packages for domestic cleaning products by the end of 2021.
The first Kiilto Woodly products will be tested in the domestic market but Oili Kallatsa, Research, Development and Innovation Director at Kiilto, is aware of the opportunities and demand in other countries as well. “There is a hefty demand for materials like Woodly’s, especially in environmentally aware Scandinavia, but Russian companies are also taking the issue of responsible packaging forward with great enthusiasm.”
Several building blocks are needed to make plastic from wood. The backbone of Woodly is cellulose polymer, which comes from wood. The cellulose is then modified with different building blocks to make it “behave” like plastic. These building blocks are inspired by nature and many of them originate from parts of plants, Woodly describes on its website. The startup also uses fossil-sourced components as some of the bio-based counterparts are not yet available on an industrial scale.
The backbone of Woodly is cellulose polymer, which comes from wood.
The first generation Woodly grades are certified by Tüv Austria as 40-60 percent bio-based. Woodly sees this as the first step on its journey towards 100 percent bio-based content.
Kiilto’s goal is for 70 percent of its packaging to be made of recycled or renewable materials or to be reusable by 2025. The cellulose used by Woodly as its primary material comes from responsibly managed and FSC-certified forests. Wood-based plastic can be used for a variety of packaging applications and produced by the same methods as conventional fossil-based plastic. After use, Woodly packages can be recycled as plastic.
“It’s important for us to display our environmental values in concrete actions. Like many other companies, we have already announced our goals for ecological product packaging. However, there aren’t suitable fossil-free alternatives readily available in the market, so we took it upon ourselves to develop them with Woodly,” explains Kallatsa.
Woodly previously demonstrated the recyclability of its material using Generation Recyclingmaschinen (NGR) machinery and confirmed that its products are aligned with the European Strategy for Plastics.
Woodly is touted as a carbon-neutral material that can be recycled in the plastic recycling stream.
Recycling Woodly material from film to granules was easy and the granules were of high clarity,” notes Dr. Peter Hierzenberger, Development & Process Technology Engineer at NGR. “From the recycled Woodly granules, a clear, 20-micrometer thin cast film could be produced in our lab under typical polyolefin processing conditions and extruder settings, indicating that the material is suited for blown film processes as well. This is rare, as typically the reprocessing of bio-based plastics into thin films is not a simple task. Woodly’s material is a perfect match for NGR’s existing equipment.”
Woodly also partnered with flexible packaging for food provider Wipak to develop a highly transparent, thermoformable film that can be processed on standard machinery. Combined with a sealing layer and PAPER TOP PD BE G 90 XX PEEL lidding film, both containing PE from a renewable basis, the share of renewable content exceeds 92 percent. The secret material is nothing else than cellulose fibers.
By Joshua Poole
