Issue 02/2020

Application News
Sustainable jewellery box made of biocomposite
The Finnish jewellery brand Ilonakoru, Rauma, Finland, designs colourful hand-made ear drops from PEFC and FSC certified
wood and stainless steel. When the company owners, Lauri and Lotta Nordberg, wanted to renew their packaging, only eco-friendly,
high-quality materials with low carbon footprint were considered.
The goal was a nice-looking, reusable box that will live long at home, to store jewellery or other small things. Long airfreight was
undesirable for environmental reasons so Ilonakoru looked for a local supplier of biocomposite.
They chose Helsinki based Stora Enso with their DuraSense ® , a biocomposite material that consists of wood fibres and polymers.
DuraSense is a climate-friendly alternative to fully fossil-based plastics in a wide variety of products, providing durability and
formability with a lower carbon footprint than conventional plastics. The base resin for the DuraSense compounds can be biobased,
recycled of fossil-based plastic. Ilonakoru has chosen to use DuraSense Pure L40, based on fossil PP and charged with 40 % wood
fibres. Thanks to DuraSense Pure L40, Ilonakoru could save 40 % of less plastic to produce the same box as before and
also saved CO 2
emissions compared with pure PP.
Muottituote Group, also based in Rauma, manufactured the box using a specially
designed and produced injection mould. The end product was a round box with black
and natural brown colours and a visible fiber structure on the cover. The box size was
customised to fit Small Parcel mail, saving packaging materials and mailing costs.
“The new box looks so nice that you want to keep it or give it as a gift. It is an
eco-statement and a selling point for us. It simply feels good to buy a product that
is manufactured and packed in an eco-friendly way”, Lauri Nordberg concludes. AT
www.ilonakoru.fi | www.storaenso.com
Bio-mulchfilm for Latin American produce growers
The need for sustainable products and development in the Latin America’s agriculture sector inspired Biorgani (Guatemala City)
to develop environmentally-responsible crop technologies and applications. As the mulch film market continues to grow worldwide,
so does its plastic consumption and applications for fresh produce farming. According to FAO, Latin America produces 14 % of the
world’s agriculture products [1].
This is why Biorgani has successfully tested, developed and is now commercializing a multilayer and biobased mulch film made
of Biorgani’s Faunnus Starch/TPS resin that complies with ASTM 6866 and EN 14045 normative, and is TÜV Austria OK Biobased.
In order to generate consistent research results, Biorgani tested the product’s performance in more than four crop cycles located
different in regions across Latin America and with a variety of crops, including: melons, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries.
Bio mulch film has a lower carbon footprint compared to plastic mulch film. Switching to biobased films allows farmers to
significantly reduce their total crude oil consumption. Using bio mulch film also helps farmers protect their soil quality by reducing
plastic accumulation in crop fields.
After the harvest, the mechanical process used to collect and extract conventional plastic mulch leaves some plastic scrap mixed
within the soil. Bio mulch film, on the other hand, is a corn starch-based film that allows any left-over scraps to be consumed by
microorganisms in soil.
Biorgani’s mulch film is biobased, mechanically recyclable (if recovered), and is also capable of composting under controlled conditions.
Biorgani is committed to promote the circular bioeconomy and overall carbon footprint reduction by developing, testing and
commercializing competitive biopolymer solutions, including sustainable film solutions for the agriculture and plastic converter
companies.
https://biorgani.tech
[1] OECD/FAO (2019), OECD-FAO
Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028,
OECD Publishing, Paris/Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, Rome.http://www.fao.org/
documents/card/en/c/ca4076en
Bio-Mulch ↑
Plastic Mulch ↑
left: bio and conventional mulch film, right:
Mulch fields in Latin America
30 bioplastics MAGAZINE [02/20] Vol. 15