PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2021

OUTER PLANET 54 PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 01+02/21 www.petpla.net OUTER PLANET Bottles made of paper, houses built from PET bottles - in this new “Outer Planet” category, we will be presenting projects that you would not normally expect to see in PETplanet Insider. But bear with us, these projects are not quite as off the wall as you might think. Quirky they may be, and most may never get beyond the development stage, but some might just be the next big thing. Join us in some blue sky thinking that could energise our entire sector. Coca-Cola’s paper bottle prototype The perfect pulp? Houses built up from plastic African population stands at 1.4 billion people with an estimated 540 million people living in urban areas, and around 60% of them – 324 million people – live in informal settlements in inadequate homes. Assuming that on average five people live in one home, a deficit of adequate housing could be estimated at 64 million units today. Paper is not the very first material that comes to mind when packaging liquid-based contents. Nevertheless, several companies around the world are experimenting to produce 100% paper bottles. One of them is Coca- Cola Europe, which has presented the first prototype of a paper bottle - which, however, has not yet managed entirely without plastic. The concept has been developed with Coca-Cola’s partner, Paboco. The Danish company Paboco, which emerged from the start-up EcoX- pac, is a joint venture between paper packaging material developer BillerudKorsnäs and bottle manufactur- ing specialist Alpla. “Our vision is to create a paper bottle than can be recycled like any other type of paper, and this prototype is the first step on the way to achiev- ing this. A paper bottle opens up a whole new world of packaging pos- sibilities, and we are convinced that paper packaging has a role to play in the future,” says Stijn Franssen, EMEA R&D Packaging Innovation Manager at Coca-Cola, who is working on the pro- ject. A lot of work still has to be done to achieve this vision of a recyclable paper bottle. The first-generation paper bottle still contains some plastic: “This first- generation paper bottle prototype still consists of a paper shell with a plastic closure and a plastic liner inside. The plastic we use is made from 100% recy- cled plastic that can be recycled again after use. But our vision is to create a paper bottle that can be recycled like any paper. The next step is to find a solution to create a bottle without the plastic liner,” Stijn says. Thorough testing going on Just like other types of packaging, a paper bottle of the future must adhere to the same high safety and qual- ity standards for food packaging that currently apply. Stijn and this team are putting the bottle through comprehensive testing in the lab to see how it performs in the refrigerator, how strong it is, and how well it protects the drinks inside. “We also reflect on how our consum- ers will react to this paper bottle. Topics like when and where it could be sold and how it can be recycled are all being considered. The bottle must be explored from every perspective to ensure that we make the bottle the best it can be,” says Stijn. He is optimistic that future technological solutions will help achieve the vision of a paper bottle that is just as recyclable as paper – a type of packag- ing technology that can be part of Coca- Cola’s packaging and portfolio mix, and which could be used for a wide range of beverages. www.coca-cola.eu Between 1990 and 2017 African countries imported around 230mt of plastics. Most of these plastics has ended up in dumping sites across Afri- can cities after their uses and reuses and creating the biggest environmental concern as local governments are not equipped to process the waste. In 2019, Shelter Afrique stated that Africa needs 1.4 trillion USD to plug adequate and affordable housing deficit. The huge housing deficit on one hand and the huge amount of plastic waste in Africa can be seen as both a huge chal- lenge and a tremendous opportunity to expand economic activity, create millions of jobs and promote environ- mental sustainability. UN-Habitat has been working with Othalo, a start-up company in Norway that has developed a technic to use recycled plastique to produce building components. Once plastic waste is recycled, it is shredded and mixed with other elements includ- ing non-flammable materials and used to produce building components like walls, floors and roofs. Othalo system can be used to build up to four floors. A 60m 2 home will need 8t of recycled plastic. A factory with one produc- tion line produces 2,800 housing units annually. In partnering with UN-Habitat, Othalo wants to make sure that their technology responds to the needs of the final users. www.othalo.com