War on Plastic Won with Trees?

Bloomberg recently published an article entitled, “War on Plastics Will Be Won With Trees, Stora Enso CEO Says”

Stora Enso, a global pulp and paper company, is making the shift to biomaterials, and its CEO makes some interesting points, such as:

(1) Anything you can make with petrochemicals (derived from crude oil and natural gas), you can instead make from a tree.
(2) Biobased packaging (made from trees) could overtake packaging made from petroleum within the decade.
(3) Pulp and paper mills can make easier-to-recycle products from trees to replace plastic bags, containers, and coatings.

These are all good points, but just because Stora Enso is successfully making the switch to biomaterials, doesn’t mean this switch will be just as easy for Maine pulp and paper mills. Maine mills are making quality paper products and tissue, and this is a critical industry. Biobased Maine is available as a resource to Maine mills who may want to consider diversifying their production by manufacturing biobased products, such as cellulosic sugars. Cellulosic sugars are chemical building blocks that can me made from woody biomass (trees). Once you make these sugars, you can use them as a starting point to make just about anything else – biobased chemicals, biopolymers, adhesives, composites, advanced biofuels, you name it. In fact, the University of Maine has technology to extract cellulosic sugars pre-pulping, which actually increases the efficiency of the pulping process.

Contact Biobased Maine to get more information on how biobased manufacturing can help diversify production and boost the profits of Maine’s pulp and paper mills.