Environmentally Friendly Glue-free Paper Straws Made of rePAPER’s REPA COAT

 

A giant waste land floating in Pacific ocean called GPGP(Great Pacific Garbage Patch) discovered in 1997 by a yacht player put the world in shock. Spotted the marine creatures suffering from the waste flown into the ocean, it became a wake-up call for the generation.

2020 as a starting point, a ‘Plastic-free Movement’ occurred in every country and industry. Green marketing and practices have been the main issues; hotels replace their amenities to bulk dispensers and encourage their customers to use reusable cups. The fashion industries produce items made of recycled materials.

 

The food packaging industry also actively started developing and applying environmentally friendly packaging that are recyclable and compostable instead of conventional plastics. The painful video clip of a turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nostril in Costa Rica triggered the plastic-free movement around the world and a plastic straw became the first target to be eliminated. For the business who the use of product is inevitable, a switch to eco-friendly alternatives is attempted, and a paper straw is one of them.

But, can the paper straw really be more sustainable? In fact, it may not be as much different from other conventional paper cups and plates in terms of environment-friendly properties as we wish due to the PE coating layer. It can hardly be called safe and green after all.

However, now a glue-free, easily recyclable and compostable paper straw is about to be released! This eco-friendly paper straw will meet customers at major café chains and convenience stores. Now, let’s find out the distinctive features of this extraordinary product.

 

1. Environmentally friendly properties: A straw can be fully recycled!

Unlike conventional PE-coated products that are rarely recycled or composted, the products made of rePAPER’s coated board can be material and organic recyclable. In short, it is easily recyclable and compostable. The excellent recyclability of rePAPER’s coated board is also validated by global institution UL.



We also had this straw paper tested in compliance with industrial standard TAPPI Method to check its dissociation, and it is proven that the product is 97.9% recyclable. Just like other products made of REPA COAT, it is recyclable in a regular repulping process and compostable in land that it is harmless to the ecosystem and humans.

 

2. Glue-free(heat-sealable): No More Chemical Adhesives!

Normally, a paper straw is produced by spiraling 3 layers of paper glued with water soluble additives such as PVAc (Polyvinyl acetate). The problems with these additives are that they would melt in a drink causing the straw softened and even torn. As expected, customers find it hard to inhale their beverage with it and doubt if these paper straws could be an appropriate solution.

On the other hand, rePAPER’s coated board REPA COAT has own sealability which means it can be sealed by heat without any chemical additives. Therefore, the straws made of REPA COAT would eliminate the worries over being weakened in liquid as well as potential exposure to harmful additives. There is a company called Lee&B who understood this distinctive feature of REPA COAT and developed glue-free environmentally friendly paper straws. They were able to produce durable, harmless products by using their unique heat-sealing manufacturing technology. Not only is Lee&B planning to supply the straws to major café chains and convenience stores in Korea, they are also about to export them to Japan and Russia. They are planning to broaden the markets to Europe, too.

When entering a café for coffee or drinks, we can see that there are still many products needed some environmental approaches such as stirrers, sandwich boxes, wraps, etc. We hope many more companies like Lee&B would join in this business that they could lead genuine resource circulation beyond marketing.

rePAPER will unweariedly research and develop further ways to apply our environmentally friendly coatings, RP-series, to not only food packaging but also other varied industries.

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