Green Europe. Efficient technologies for manufacturing innovative and environmentally friendly products is a project developed by Prodplast (Romania) as a project promoter and BioBag International (Norway) as a project partner. The project’s aim is business cooperation development between Romania and Norway in order to offer solutions for both land and marine single-use plastic littering and pollution. Both BioBag and Prodplast are working for less plastic in the world and have a goal of offering substitutes for traditional plastics where it makes sense and where there is a risk that the plastic ends in nature.
The product’s duration is between September 2019 and June 2021 and includes developing manufacturing capacity for compostable products near Bucharest, Romania. The investment is EUR 2.567.968. The project is supported by a grant of EUR 950.000 from Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway through the EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2013-2021, in the frame of the Programme “SMEs Growth Romania”. The two partners have extensive experience in product development and manufacturing.
The European legislation regarding single-use plastic is constantly changing and the EU Parliament voted for banning a selected number of single-use plastic products, encouraging the innovation and design of innovative and sustainable alternatives, thus encouraging companies to develop new and sustainable solutions to single-use plastic.
Less plastic will help the increasing plastic polution
The products we want to develop address the problems of plastic pollution and food waste recycling, and they subscribe to the principles of a circular economy being fully in line with the EU regulations. Through this project we aim to develop innovative environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging, covering a wide range of products as we believe that less plastic produced will help to address the increasing plastic pollution.
- Compostable packaging: lightweight carrier bags (for fruits, vegetables, cheese, or meat), compostable films for family care and baby care (film for pads, diapers), or films used in agriculture (mulching films). All of these products are plant-based, using easily renewable resources, like cornstarch. We are planning to offer products for the waste management industries, where the separate collection of biowaste is essential. These innovative products can be composted with the food waste and transformed into valuable soil feedstocks. These are highly requested products on the market thanks to their green innovation and at the moment there is a shortage of supply on the European market.
- Marine biodegradable packaging: different types of bags made of PHA-based products (polyhydroxyalkanoates) being fully marine biodegradable and can also replace some conventional plastic bags and films. They are designed to biodegrade through anaerobic digestion in marine environments, soil, water environments, home composting systems, or industrial composting facilities. This is a truly innovative solution, which at the moment is produced on a very small scale and which offers very promising results in terms of environmental protection.
About Prodplast:
Prodplast is one of the leading players in the Central and Eastern European market in compostable products development and manufacturing. Prodplast has more than 60 years of experience and exports its products across European markets. The production plant is based near Bucharest, Romania and it hosts state-of-the-art equipment in order to produce high-quality goods.
About BioBag:
BioBag’s experience brings an added value to the project through know-how transfer in order to maximize the development of innovative environmentally friendly products, this way attaining the project’s objectives. BioBag is a world-leading company in the development, production, and marketing of certified compostable and biodegradable products, having extensive market knowledge, consumer insights and efficient sales strategies developed. Both partners have the intention of developing a long-term business relationship in order to closely cooperate on product development.