Project Information Sheet

Plastic/cork composites: an innovative sustainable material for wine stoppers (PLACOTOP)

Programme area: / First Application and market replication projects
Food and drink sector
Coordinator: / Miriam García
Tecnalia ResearchInnovation, Spain
E-mail:
Tel:+34 647402327
Partners: / Plásticos Urteta (Spain)
Rescoll (France)
Website: /
Benefits
(max. 150 characters incl. space): / Substitution of plastic stoppers for wine by plastic/cork to reduce fossil fuel resource dependence by combining the advantages of both raw materials
Keywords: / Polymer, cork, stopper
Sector: / Food and Drink
Type of solution / Product
Duration: / 01/09/2010 – 28/02/2013
Budget: / €917,053 (EU contribution: 50%)
Contract number: / 255890

Summary

Plastic stoppers are increasing their presence in the beverages market but hybrid plastic/cork composite stoppers could reduce fossil fuel resource dependence while contributing to cork preservation. Thus, the aim of the project is to develop ready-to-market composite stoppers for wine market for substitution of plastic stoppers.

The new product will offer advantages such as lower price than cork together with lower density, lower extraction force and better environmental performance than plastic stoppers for substituting partially the plastic by biomass. Moreover, it will provide absence of TCA while avoiding oxidation of wine.

To achieve objectives the following work-plan in being followed:

-Optimisation of processing conditions at industrial scale

-Characterisation of the optimised stoppers and elaboration of a data sheet

-Alimentary analysis

-Life cycle analysis

-Market uptake

Spain and France are among the major manufacturers of both plastics and cork stoppers. The development of this project by two leading countries in the sector will provide a global perspective of the market and its requirements.

Expected and/or achieved results

-Reduction of fossil fuel resources: substitution of plastic by cork at least 38% in volume. We are trying to increase this value as much as possible

-Solution to current problems associated to stoppers: plastic ones show oxidation of wine and are petroleum based, while cork shows TCA problems and high price. Composite stoppers are partially biobased, don’t show TCA nor oxidation problems and price is much lower than that of cork.

-Eco-friendly product image: the plastic image is not desired by customers because it is linked to something artificial, so cork-like image is often searched by producers for its natural image. Composite stoppers offer a new type of image since cork is clearly seen in the stopper and this could offer a more “eco” image that could contribute for selling.

-Potential market: currently plastic stoppers suppose 13% of the total production, what accounts for 20 billion stoppers yearly. If only 20% of the plastic stopper market is substituted by the new product, an output of 520 million plastic/cork stoppers would be manufactured worldwide.

The information sheet will be published in the Eco-Innovation website. The EACI reserves the right to edit the information sheet for content and length

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