The European Project E-DDIBIORESIN, in which TECNOPACKAGING collaborates with other 3 partners from Spain and Portugal is funded by the European Commission with more than one million Euros.- A new material will be developed, combining resin extracted from pine trees and bioplastics to manufacture 100% biodegradable lightweight bags for fruits and vegetables and semirigid trays for fresh fish and meat. The target is to reduce the single- use- plastics environmental issue
Fighting against climate change became a priority in Europe and thus Sustainability and Circular Economy have become the main social and industrial pillars. This context is forcing industry to reformulate its strategies and production practices, setting itself a very clear goal: to solve the “single-use plastics” issue, by creating new organic-based materials that will form the basis of innovative sustainable products.
The European project E-DDBIORESIN, in which United Resins (Portugal), United Biopolymers (Portugal), TECNOPACKAGING (Spain) and Eversia (Spain) jointly collaborate, is presented as an innovative alternative, which seeks to demonstrate new biological routes for the development of natural-based packaging, through the development of a new material derived from renewable sources. This material will be a combination of natural resins (rosin) extracted from trees (pine trees) and biodegradable polyester.
E-DDBIORESIN is to produce novel formulations by modifying and compatibilizing the resins with these biodegradable polyester polymers (i.e. PLA, PBAT, etc.) and starch. The resulting bio-based polymers will be used for the manufacture of three lines of 100% biodegradable and compostable (under EN13432: 2000) packaged products, oriented to the agri-food sector: ultra-heavy bags for fruits and vegetables, semi-rigid trays for meats and fish, and a tray + film structure for fruits and vegetables.
These new products will have improved properties in terms of processability, transparency and mechanical performance over current commercial biodegradable alternatives. E-DDIBIORESIN’s new range of bioplastic products aims to replace 90% of current polyethylene competitors. The horizon of opportunities looks encouraging for E-DDIBIORESIN’s proposal, as the global bioplastics production market is estimated to welcome a significant increase by 2024, to 2.43 MT per year, as an innovative alternative to petrochemical polymers.
In a few years’ time, bioplastics could generate a turnover valued at 50 billion euros. In order to align future developments with the new European legislation on single-use plastics, E-DDIBIORESIN will also open up new lines of research to cover a wider spectrum of replicability, by studying and developing a second range of products for the agri-food sector.
EUROSTARS Program of the European Commission
This project has received funding from the Eurostars-2 joint program with co-funding from CDTI and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program for Research and Innovation. The EUROSTARS program seeks to promote research and development projects involving small and medium-sized companies, with the aim of exploiting the results through international collaboration.
