A new trial aims to create paper-based packaging from ‘second harvest’ materials.
According to one of the firms involved – DS Smith – second harvest materials like straw and brewers’ spent grain have the potential to save up to 10% of the virgin fibres used in the papermaking process and therefore present an important and viable means to supplement traditional sources.
One of the partners in the initiative, Nafici Environmental Research (NER), based in West Sussex, has created a process to transform agricultural waste into paper-making pulp with strengthening properties. DS Smith says it is using its state-of-the-art research and innovation site in Kent, Kemsley, to explore how the pulp, pioneered by Nafici from previously unwanted products, can be used to make sustainable packaging products.
Commenting on the work, Nick Thompson, DS Smith’s Materials Development Director, said businesses are keen to understand how they can adopt more circularity into their supply chains and a key aspect of that is finding secondary uses for what are currently considered waste materials.
