Development of a natural, waterproof, 60-day biodegradable, alginate material for lining paper-based cups and packaging

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"* Over 5bn items of plastic-coated paper packaging, such as coffee cups, soup cartons and salad boxes are thrown away in the UK each year. Despite being composed of 95% paper and 5% waterproof polyethylene lining, the technical difficulty and high cost associated with separating the materials mean that only 1 in 400 recycled, resulting in 25k tonnes going to landfill every year.* Skipping Rocks Lab is an innovative sustainable packaging start-up focused on the development of natural, biodegradable alternatives to plastics. With over 30 years combined material, chemistry and design experience, we are pioneering the use of natural materials such as alginate, an extract from brown seaweed, to create plastic alternative materials and packaging with low environmental impact.* This has resulted in the development of a basic lab prototype alginate membrane that can used to encapsulate water. Spherical and transparent in colour, the membrane is edible, biodegradable and has a shelf life of 24 hours.* Building upon this success, we intend to research the possibility/assess the feasibility of creating a water-proof, fully biodegradable, alginate lining for cardboard cups and other paper based products -- as an alternative to low density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic, which is used on 90% of waterproofed paper products.* To address this we wish to develop of a proof-of-concept, natural, low cost (LDPE-comparable) waterproof, alginate lining material - stored at room temperature the lining has 0% degradation, enabling lined products to be kept for months and years, however when introduced to humidity AND microbial activity i.e. in a compost, the lining and product are fully biodegradable in 60 days (LDPE 30+years, PLA 120 days in industrial composter, 30 years in landfill).* The project focuses on the development of cross linking our proprietary alginate formula with different plant extracts to determine which offers the best water resistance and viscosity for the lining, identification of a natural binding agent and best way to manufacture the alginate-lined paper.* Alternative technologies do exist such as wax-coating, starch-coating and plant-based polylactic acid (PLA) cups however none of these are fully biodegradable in the natural environment within a short space of time.* The project represents our first step to developing products for the sustainable packaging market, expected to be worth $244bn by 2018 (8.3% CAGR - Smithers Pira Report). We conservatively estimate these to be worth £2.7m (138% ROI) by Y3, £13.1m (650% ROI) by Y5\."