Paptic is made of wood fibres from controlled and sustainably managed forests. The material is completely biodegradable.
Tuomas Mustonen and Karita Kinnunen-Raudaskoski established Paptic with Esa Torniainen in 2015. At the time, Mustonen and Torniainen were working at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland on the development of the sales and business operations of research services aimed at the forest industry, while Kinnunen-Raudaskoski was also working at VTT, as a senior scientist. “Whether there was a material that could replace plastic was a standard question asked by customers as early as five years ago. When you hear a question often enough, you begin to believe that there’s an opportunity for business here,” says Torniainen. The test batches were made with a laboratory sheet mould. The approach when meeting potential customers was akin to being “willing to learn, but prepared to take a beating” as Torniainen puts it, in his straightforward manner. The fact that the very first customer immediately ordered replace- ments for plastic bags made from Paptic’s material was a welcome surprise. The next customer was a major European fashion industry company, the management of which agreed to meet Paptic’s representatives on the basis of a single email. “I’d never had a reaction like it in my whole career. Rather than just welcoming us, our customers are practi- cally pulling us through the door. The desire to get rid of plastic is real,” says Torniainen. THE WINNER BECAME THE PROBLEM When you touch the Paptic material, it feels like some- thing between paper and fabric. It crumples up like paper, but returns to its shape like a fabric. As a shopping bag, the material is strong, yet it can still be sewn or glued. Plasticity, lightness and numerous application possibil- ities also guaranteed the success of plastic, back in the day when plastic beat its rivals – paper, paperboard and glass – in the packaging and manufacturing industries. Plastic played an important role in the economic growth of Western countries throughout the 20th century. Con- sumption, the rise in living standards and a desire to make everyday tasks easier all walked hand-in-hand with the growth of plastic consumption. The world produces 350 million tonnes of plastic a year, of which 85 per cent ends up in landfills or, increasingly, in
bodies of water. Every year, eight million more tonnes of plastic end up in the world’s oceans, most of it from Asia. The oft-quoted 2016 report by the Ellen McArthur Foun- dation – named after sailor Ellen McArthur – presents a truly troubling scenario: by 2050, the world’s oceans will contain more plastic than fish. The micro-plastic that enters the oceans accumulates in people through drinking water, food and even the air we breathe, with as yet unforeseen consequences. The bi- odiversity and well-being of marine animals and nature are at risk. This once desired material, which symbolised progress, has become a liability we need to get rid of. In the United Nations convention held in Geneva in July 2019, 187 countries made a commitment to reduce plas- tic waste and increase plastic recycling. So far, 127 coun- tries have imposed a charge on disposable plastic bags or banned them altogether. Many developing countries which used to accept waste from the Western countries are now refusing to accept plastic waste. In the European Union, the ban on dispos- able plastics will take effect in 2021. There is therefore plenty of demand for a biodegradable, bio-based and sus- tainably produced material. PULP LENDS ITSELF TO EVERYTHING The line is bad, and no wonder – Professor Thomas Rosenau answers his phone from the basement lab of an Austrian university where, he tells us, he spends most of his time. Professor Rosenau works as a professor of wood and pulp chemistry in the Austrian University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, or BOKU, and he has also visited Finland and the United States as a researcher. He focuses on basic research in polymers, meaning that he looks deeper and deeper into their molecular structure. Polymers are found in nature and in synthetic form. Cel- lulose is one of nature’s polymers. The thought of using wood instead of oil-based plastic is not new. “Academic research on the properties of wood fibre has been done for 70 years now,” says Rosenau. The good properties of wood fibre – such as its softness, strength, lightness and good elasticity – have been known
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