A plastic substitute is created from vegetable waste

Feltwood, an Aragonese company, has developed an innovative industrial and ecological material manufactured from agriculture vegetable waste, which offers an ecological alternative to plastic, and an environmental construction solution.

The materials being manufactured are made with 100% vegetable fibers, so they are biodegradable and even compostable. They can be recycled while preserving their quality. They also do not contain toxic substances such as adhesives, plastics or hazardous binders. Due to their hardness, versatility, and resistance they have various applications. Fibers can be lighter, more rigid or more flexible, to adapt to the needs of the end product.

Among the multiple purposes which can be given to these materials, we can mention the construction of furniture, packaging materials, boards, thermal insulation for construction, sports equipment, musical instruments, toys…

Arancha Yáñez and Óscar Longares met at Startups in Love, a networking event held every year in Zaragoza, which helps professionals and startups to develop new teams for their current and future projects. From there, they started with the Feltwood project. Feltwood entered the Ship2B accelerator; obtained funding from the Horizon 2020 program when it was selected (Phase 1). It has been awarded by the EIT Food European Agency, and this same week it won the Entrepreneur Award XXI, promoted by CaixaBank, in the Impact Tech sector.

Once the patent is registered, they will put together their business model: “We want to license the technology so that other companies can produce our materials,” explains Longares. Their target is aimed at two types of customers: companies generating or managing agriculture waste, and companies that will buy Feltwood material to manufacture fruit and vegetable trays for supermarkets, to replace the cork which fills the boxes of appliances, or as a construction insulator. “We will sell our technology to all of them,” says Longares. In addition, the manufacture process is four times cheaper than plastic. Therefore, it seems that there are no more excuses to reduce plastic consumption on the planet.

Source: abc.es