Our Projects

Compostable stretch wrap at commercial scale

Project description and overview:

Great Wrap is on a mission to remove the 150,000 tons of non-compostable plastic stretch wrap sent to Australia’s landfill each year.  Stretch wrap takes the form of cling wrap, silage wrap and pallet wrap. Stretch wrap has traditionally been made from petroleum and thus has had a significant negative environmental impact due to ultimate carbon emissions and being poorly recycled.

Great Wrap is currently leading a CRC-P to create a process to convert food waste into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) wrap, this being the only biopolymer that is compostable, landfill/anaerobic biodegradable and marine biodegradable.

This project will give Great Wrap the ability to manufacture biopolymer resin from organic waste generated by Australian food and beverage production and use it to manufacture compostable stretch wrap that can replace plastic cling, silage and pallet wraps.

This project will accomplish a complete commercial scale up of the technology and development of commercial scale facility in Tullamarine. It will translate research outputs of a CRC-P led by Great Wrap from an integrated pilot system demonstration (TRL 7) to a commercial scale up (TRL 9).

This project will allow Great Wrap to use waste sources from the vegetable industry in Greater Melbourne (such as potato waste) to produce its compostable pallet wrap at commercial scale.

EXPECTED IMPACT

  • Increased spending on R&D
  • Increased collaboration with other manufacturers
  • Increased number of staff with science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) skills
  • Better qualified employees
  • Larger patent portfolio
  • Increased levels of automation
  • Smarter inventory management
  • Better energy efficiency
  • Greater capital intensity
  • Newer equipment
  • More extensive backward links
  • Larger geographical reach

EXPECTED GROWTH

  • Great Wrap forecast $97M in revenue over 5 years

EXPECTED JOBS

  • This project is projected to upskill and create an additional 65 jobs
Contributions:

Government Funds: $534,760 | Industry: $534,760 | In-Kind: $5,336,054

Project Collaborators