At the bottom of the wheel with examples of renewable materials at the previous page, all kinds of non-plastics are shown. With our focus on plastic packaging materials we shouldn’t forget the other options in the market. As an example, in the following video Christiaan Bolck talks about an alternative renewable material they’ve developed. He also looks ahead, with his vision on the future of renewables in the packaging industry.

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

• Besides plastics there are other innovative biobased packaging materials. An option for replacing conventional plastics are fibre based materials. The main challenge for developing these materials is recreating the properties of plastics.
• Fibre based materials have some notable downsides compared to conventional plastics: they are less resistant to humidity, weigh more and provide a less effective gas barrier.
• According to Christiaan Bolck, one of the main barriers to the widespread adoption of renewable and biobased materials is resistance to change from ‘dinosaurs’: industry stakeholders who wish to maintain the status quo.