Description du projet
Un emballage durable et écologique pour le poisson frais
L’industrie halieutique distribue 6,3 millions de tonnes de poissons par an en Europe, emballés dans des boîtes en polystyrène expansé pour préserver leur fraîcheur et éviter leur altération. Ces boîtes représentent toutefois une menace considérable pour l’environnement, car elles sont fabriquées à partir de combustibles fossiles et ne servent qu’une seule fois. Malgré la prise de conscience de ce problème, les alternatives actuelles manquent d’efficacité ou sont onéreuses, ce qui les rend inadaptées à la tâche. Le projet Cool Wool Box, financé par l’UE, propose une alternative écologique, une boîte en carton isolante biodégradable, légère, solide, imperméable et qui utilise de la laine jetée ou reconstituée intégrée, suivant ainsi un modèle de production d’économie circulaire sans déchets. Cette solution augmente également la capacité d’isolation tout en maintenant une plus faible empreinte carbone et en réduisant les coûts.
Objectif
Each year around 6.3 million tons of fish are distributed around Europe. Maintaining the cold chain during distribution is critical to avoid spoilage and guarantee freshness, ensuring the highest quality fish is delivered. Expanded polystyrene (EPS) boxes are usually used with this purpose. However, they are a major threat to the environment, since they are manufactured from fossil fuels and are used as single-use disposable packaging, having thus a high carbon footprint. Moreover, due to the low recycling rate of EPS, most of these boxes end up in landfills, contributing to the vast amounts of plastic waste generated.
An increasingly stringent regulation on plastic waste (including the possibility of EU policies limiting EPS use), and a growing demand from consumers for sustainable practices are driving fish producers to look for plastic-free eco-friendly packaging alternatives. However, currently available options on the market still fail either on performance or cost.
Cool Wool ehf was founded in 2017 with the aim of developing the Cool Wool box: an insulating box for the fishing industry that will lower the environmental impact of its supply chain. Cool Wool box is an eco-friendly, biodegradable, light and strong waterproof cardboard box with integrated wool layers coming from discarded wool from the farm sector or regenerated wool from the textile industry. In this way, Cool Wool Box (which will be produced following a zero-waste circular economy production model) grants a superior insulation capacity to state-of-the-art solutions, while having a low carbon footprint and cutting down packaging, transport, and disposal costs.
This project will allow our company to transition from pre-revenue to profitable business in just two years of commercialization, growing our team to 13 people. Moreover, it will contribute to our vision of leading the way towards a more sustainable future by developing eco-friendly thermal packaging solutions.
Champ scientifique
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecycling
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringtextiles
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcoating and films
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicssustainable economy
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinateur
170 SELTJARNARNES
Islande
L’entreprise s’est définie comme une PME (petite et moyenne entreprise) au moment de la signature de la convention de subvention.