Middle East’s 1st plant-based water bottle, biofoams made from seafood waste, mushrooms, bamboo diapers, biobowls, and more: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of March 12th

#4 Packaging challenge finalists include mushroom and seafood waste solutions

In Virginia, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition picked five finalists for its Protective Packaging Design Challenge, many of which featured biobased solutions.

TemperPack’s ClimaCell uses foam made from paper and plant starch to provide thermal and shock protection, while CruzForm was chosen for its compostable materials that combine seafood waste such as shrimp shells with paper waste. Ecovative, another finalist, uses mushrooms and agricultural byproducts to create home compostable protective packaging for e-commerce applications.

The solutions were chosen based on sourcing, optimization, recovery, scalability, and protection ability. Advisors include employees of Amazon, Wayfair, and Dow, and its judges hail from investment firm Closed Loop Partners and academia.

Other winners included Flexi-Hex, which uses recycled paper in a honeycomb shape, and HexcelPack’s paper bubble wrap.
More on the story, here.