Wood-based foams for greener e-commerce

In Finland, forest products company Stora Enso has launched two lightweight, biobased foams made from wood that are fully recyclable and can be used for protective and thermal packaging. 

The first—Fibrease™—is available now and made with up to 98% renewable materials. It is designed to replace polyurethane foams and polystyrene. The second, Papira®, just began pilot-scale operations at Stora Enso’s Fors, Sweden facility. Fibrease is a memory foam-like material that can be fabricated using different foam cutting techniques and thermoforming. It comes with a high insulating capacity and is suitable for thermal packaging, for example in online grocery sales and medicine shipments. Both Fibrease and Papira are recyclable in paper streams. 

“Consumers of today are pushing to minimize the use of plastic and maximize recyclability,” says Markus Mannström, EVP Biomaterials at Stora Enso, in a press statement. “At the same time, the need for packaging protection is increasing due to growing demands in e-commerce and cold-chain logistics. With our bio-based foams we help customers create eco-friendly and circular packaging solutions, while also meeting material performance needs to protect and insulate the goods.”