Cling Wrap Made from Potato Waste
Australia’s Great Wrap to expand into U.S. with home compostable cling wrap and its refillable dispenser made from recycled PET bottles.
News about novel bioplastics and resultant product applications appear to be emerging more rapidly these days. Last month, we were contacted by Alex Ota, senior account executive at ChicExecs Brand Strategy, a California-based PR firm representing Australian materials science company Great Wrap, in the U.S.
Founded just two years ago by husband and wife team Jordy and Julia Kay, Great Wrap’s team of scientists, bio-designers and engineers developed a technology that diverts potato waste from landfill to create a compostable stretch wrap that breaks down into carbon and water in under 180 days in a compost pile, with zero toxins.
According to the founders, the potato waste is mixed with a proprietary combination of additives and processing conditions to formulate a bioplastic that can be processed on conventional plastic processing lines. Moreover, the stretch film wrap is said to have equivalent performance to that of conventional LDPE or PVC wrap.
In addition, Great Wrap developed a reusable dispenser for its “Nudie” cling rolls made from 33 recycled PET bottles. Called “Great Mate”, it was designed by Julia Kay to dispense and slice Great Wrap’s certified compostable wrap. Currently it’s available on a subscription-based service, and comes in four seasonal colors.
This past June, the company was able to raise $24 million in its Series A funding round, which will enable it to set up a biorefinery capable of producing 66 million lbs of wrap by the end of 2023. This would make it the largest cling wrap maker in Australia. Great Wrap is already available in Australia through the company’s two existing facilities and plans are to start up a U.S. manufacturing facility next year.
The company estimates that by year’s end, it will have diverted over 110 million lbs of potato waste from landfill, and there is potential to boost that number to over 661 million lbs in 2023, following its launch in the U.S. Great Wrap’s founders cite statistics that show that the average person throws away over 38 lb/yr of cling wrap, adding up to a whopping over 12.5 billion lb/yr globally. According to National Geographic, Americans alone, buy enough plastic film each year to shrink-wrap Texas.
The company is not licensing its technology and has launched the product directly through its website, but is interested in exploring opportunities with large retail outfits in the future.
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