Development of a sustainable biopolymer for extrusion and injection moulding manufacturing

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UK households throw away ~100Bn items of plastic packaging/year\[Statista 2023\]. A significant proportion of this is made up of beauty and personal care consumer packaging, presenting an enormous waste management problem for end-of-life plastic packaging. The onus is increasingly on cosmetic and personal care brands and packaging manufacturers to consider end-of-life disposal through EPR schemes and the recent introduction of the Plastics Packaging Tax.There is an urgent need for plastic-alternatives as a packaging solution that avoid PPT, are compostable at end-of-life, and are fully compatible and stable with complex oil/water based cosmetic formulations.FlexSea are developing novel biomaterials using hydrocolloid extracts from red seaweeds as a bio-based feedstock for sustainable packaging solutions. Working with 2M, a key player in the cosmetic and personal care speciality chemical sector, in this collaboration we will advance the properties of this novel biopolymer for use in a cosmetic pot by enhancing the water-oil barrier performance for use with cosmetic formulations.Industrial processing methods (extrusion and injection moulding) will be assessed in collaboration with WMG, drawing on their expertise in advanced manufacturing using sustainable materials to understand processing impact on the biomaterial properties and determine requirements for eventual scale-up production.Project demonstrations will validate the robustness of a biomaterial-based prototype cosmetic pot on a pilot packaging line showcasing suitability for use as a packaging solution.Successful project outcomes will address an urgent need for the cosmetics and personal care sector by providing a completely novel seaweed-derived bioplastic as an exciting biobased sustainable packaging solution.