With the launch of the Smart Sustainable Plastics Packaging Challenge towards the end of 2018, the UK threw down the gauntlet to the consumer products packaging industry - producers, designers, raw materials manufacturers and more - across the country. The aim was to ‘challenge’ innovators to make the UK a world leader in creating sustainable packaging, as well as to reduce the impact of harmful plastics on the environment, on the back of £60 million (€70.45) of new public funding. The funding, which has been supplemented by an additional £149 million (€175 million) from industry, is managed by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. Businesses wishing to enter the challenge must submit projects to UKRI-organised competition rounds. To date, over £30 million - about €35 million - has been invested from the challenge for innovation in smart and sustainable plastic packaging for consumer products.
In the latest round, UKRI has awarded almost £2 million (€2.35 million) in 14 projects targeted at developing solutions for common problems concerning plastic packaging for consumer products.
The projects include a number of new biobased, high-performance polymers which have the potential to replace the current oil-based plastic packaging materials in multiple applications for everyday consumer products. Funding was also granted to help prototype new cleaning product ranges in reusable and refillable packaging, which, when disposed of, will create significantly lower CO2 emissions than single-use alternatives.
“We are funding some really smart innovations for consumer packaging,” said Paul Davidson, Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge Director. “When these projects move into the distribution phase, we are going to see some big changes in how we shop, our experiences with food packaging and what we understand to be plastic packaging.”
The winners were:
Biome: a disruptive alternative to plastic packaging materials, exploring the potential of cyanobacteria derived exopolysaccharides as novel, biodegradable and edible biopolymers (CyoBPoly) (Southampton and Nottingham)
Blow Moulding Technologies Ltd: optimisation of plastic packaging through computer aided design (Northern Ireland)
Central Pharma Contract Packaging Limited: Central Pharma recycling creating a circular economy for pharmaceutical packaging (Bedfordshire)
Cornish Farm Dairy Limited: galaxy re-usable milk bottle for supermarkets (Cornwall)
Impact Laboratories Limited: BioMide: bio produced nylon to enable recyclable multilayer film packaging (Scotland)
Jara Partnership Ltd: Jara Partnership Ltd personal care pods (Guildford)
Loopy Products Limited: developing a solution to eliminate dish soap plastic packaging (London)
Notpla Limited: Notpla pearls: a seaweed based alternative to plastic packaging in the cosmetics industry (London)
OPRL Limited: Plastic Packaging Portal (PPP) (London)
PlantSea LTD: PlantSea-Pack (Wales)
Recycling of used Plastics Limited: Kent understanding plastics ‘live lab’ up project (Kent)
The Ocean Bottle LTD: Ocean Bottle plastic collection impact loyalty programme (London)
WRAP: behaviour change interventions to increase citizen participation in reuse and refill systems (Leeds)
Xampla LTD: consumable plastic packaging (Cambridge).