Usable Packaging (Unlocking the Potential of Sustainable Biodegradable Packaging) is a research and innovation project funded under Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking with a consortium of 25 institutions from eleven countries, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Poland, United Kingdom and Croatia. The project started on 1 June 2019 and ends on 31 May 2022.
The project is expected to develop high performance plastic packaging through a sustainable and fully circular value chain, where the biomass raw material sourcing derives from food processing side streams. The aim is to obtain, using low footprint biochemical processing, a portfolio of bio-based biodegradable building block materials enabling the realization of complex packaging structures, including laminates and multilayer films. The aforementioned materials would match key functional requirements of commercial petrochemical plastics, such as gas/ liquid barrier properties, mechanical resistance, resistance to cold temperatures etc.
USABLE Packaging concept is designed to retrofit the existing state-of-the-art packaging processing technology by controlling the chemical and physical properties of the base building blocks materials. When compared to its petrochemical peers, USABLE Packaging offers a sustainable end-of-life, since materials would be biodegradable, thus causing no harm to the environment and would have potential to deliver additional economic value through organic recycling for production of biogas, with the same consolidated disposal route as bio-waste or through biotech recycling, to be used again as feedstock for the production of the same base resins for USABLE Packaging.
More information on the project is avalable on the CORDIS website: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/223338/factsheet/en and the project's website:https://www.usable-packaging.eu/
This project has received funding from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 836884. The JU received support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Bio Based Industries Consortium