Stora Enso launches bio-based wood foams for recyclable product protection

03 Dec 2021 --- Stora Enso is launching a bio-based foam portfolio made from wood for protective and thermal packaging.

The recyclable lightweight foams address the need for climate-friendly, renewable and circular cushioning materials in inner packaging.

The portfolio consists of two new offerings: Fibrease and Papira.

Both foams come with versatile technical and environmental sustainability properties, and customers can select a suitable foam based on their specific packaging requirements. The foams can also be used for protecting fragile goods and are optimal for the thermal packaging of temperature-sensitive products.

Fibrease is commercially available now, while the pilot plant for producing Papira has started operations at the company’s Fors site in Sweden, following an investment announced in August 2020.

Fighting fossil-based packaging
Fossil-based packaging is a major contributor to pollution, accounting for 40% of the world’s plastics, says Stora Enso. Today, fossil-based materials like plastic wrap or polystyrene foams are widely used as cushioning and insulating materials in packaging.

The Fibrease padding.With Fibrease and Papira, Stora Enso is attempting to bring renewable alternatives to fossil-based packaging protection. The bio-based foams come from certified wood and are recyclable in paper recycling streams.

“Consumers today are pushing to minimize the use of plastic and maximize recyclability. At the same time, the need for packaging protection is increasing due to growing demands in e-commerce and cold-chain logistics,” says Markus Mannström, EVP for biomaterials at Stora Enso.

“With our bio-based foams, we help customers create eco-friendly and circular packaging solutions while also meeting material performance needs to protect and insulate the goods.”

Stora Enso’s new pilot plant aims to evaluate and validate Papira as a packaging foam in customer tests. The Fors site, where the Papira pilot facility is located, produces lightweight paperboards for consumer packaging.

Product protection
On Black Friday, PackagingInsights discussed how e-commerce products could be protected without raising the use of environmentally damaging materials with packaging experts from DS Smith and Mondi.

DS Smith estimated over €1.3 billion (US$1.5 billion) worth of damaged goods could be delivered in Europe alone over the sales period.

However, padding and other protective packaging features do not necessarily have to be wasteful or unrecyclable. In particular, fiber-based solutions increasingly offer more recyclable alternatives, such as HexcelPack’s protective paper mailer and paper-based wrapping system.

Edited

By Louis Gore-Langton

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