Arla Finland starts to use wood-based plastic in its liquid packages. The plastic granulates are produced from BioVerno tall oil diesel of UPM at Dow Chemicals. After this the packaging cardboard is coated by plastic at a factory of Elopak.
Arla Finland will start using the wood-based plastic in all its cardboard milk and yoghurt packages as well as in the packages of food preparation products. Because of this, all in all 40 million packages that include wood-based plastic appear on the shelves of Finnis grociery stores annually. The new packages are available at once.
Technical characteristics of the wood-based plastic are the same as with traditional plastic. New packages can be recycled with cardboard as were the previous ones. Plastic coating is, however, needed in order to protect the milk and the package.
UPM BioVerno is produced at the Lappeenranta biorefinery from side products of pulp production. It is currently mixed with fossil diesel in ordinary gas stations in Finland.
Use of wood-based plastic at Arla reduces the need of fossile plastic by 180,000 kilos annually and it reduces the carbon footprint of the packages by one fifth. Wood-based raw material does not compete with agricultural fields and food production.
