Iggesund presents Invercote Bio at Luxe Pack

Versatile drinking cups with a green profile

At this year’s Luxe Pack in Green Iggesund is presenting single-use drinking cups made of paperboard coated with biodegradable bioplastic. Invercote Bio is the name chosen by Iggesund for the combination of its own paperboard and the Italian company Novamont’s Mater-Bi. Both materials are certified as biodegradable.

“Popular opinion believes it is a waste of resources to use virgin fibre-based board in single-use products,” explains Jonas Adler, who is responsible for these products at Iggesund Paperboard. “In fact, this practice is environmentally sound, not least because these cups can be used in all the waste streams stipulated by the European Union. The cups can be recycled as a material, recovered as energy, composted or used to produce biogas. Few other materials can offer these benefits, and the result is savings both in handling costs and a reduced need for storage facilities.” The cups being shown by Iggesund are converted by SCATOLIFICIO DEL GARDA S.p.A. and have an ingenious double-walled construction designed to protect the user’s hand from hot beverages. But Iggesund’s future plans for Invercote Bio extend far beyond just drinking cups.

“We envision a wide range of applications in the food distribution and large-scale catering industries,” Adler says. “With Invercote Bio, there is no need to separate the food waste from the packaging, which offers major advantages at the waste handling stage.”

Adler is convinced that the market for compostable products is growing and will continue to do so. One example of this trend is the stipulation by the organisers of the London 2012 Summer Olympics that all the catering materials must be compostable, so it will be easy to produce biogas from the waste.

“At the moment Invercote Bio is being bought by customers who want a biodegradable material for its environmental features. When people realise the potential for improved profit during the waste handling stage, then sales will really take off,” Adler concludes.

Source: Packaginggazette via: http://bioplastic-innovation.com