VALENCIA, 14 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Generalitat, through the Department of Innovation, Industry, Commerce and Tourism, finances the development of a new packaging for wine bottles that takes advantage of the waste generated by pruning the vine, removing leaves from clusters or pressing grapes. In this way, the aim is to “value” within the wine sector itself the remains of shoots, stalks and skins to manufacture compostable and sustainable bioplastic boxes, similar to the cardboard boxes that this industry currently uses to store, transport and distribute its bottles.
The La Viña Cooperative of La Font de la Figuera (Valencia) coordinates this strategic project, called Raspons, in collaboration with the Plastics Technology Institute, Aimplas, and the Institute for Conservation and Improvement of Valencian Agrodiversity (Comav) of the Polytechnic University of València (UPV) in order to improve the competitiveness of the sector itself through the development of sustainable and innovative products, as reported by the Generalitat in a statement.
The initiative also has the financial support of the Valencian Institute of Competitiveness and Innovation (Ivace i) and financing from the European Union within the framework of the Feder Comunitat Valenciana program for the period 2021-2027.
Through Raspons, the aim is to provide wine companies with “an innovative solution within the framework of the circular economy to the more than two tons of waste that are generated annually in Spain during the wine making process,” the Generalitat has detailed.
Traditionally, these byproducts have been used as fertilizers, biomass or have been derived to other industries to obtain alcohols or bioethanol. The goal now is to produce a new material, an alternative to cardboard, that is “sustainable and economical.”
According to the leading researcher in Agriculture and Aquatic Environment at Aimplas, Chelo Escrig, the new plastic products “not only have to be compostable and maintain the mechanical properties required for packaging and transportation, but they should also reduce the costs of raw material, by replacing cardboard with by-products from the industry itself”.
The cardboard-like plastic compounds that have already been obtained within the framework of Raspons meet these requirements. Developed from biopolymers and agricultural waste with a high cellulose content, these materials are “biodegradable and semi-rigid and, in addition, thanks to the extracts obtained from the skins (the solid remains of pressing the grapes) it is possible to dye them in a sustainable way “.
“The valorization of by-products derived from wine arises from the wine industry’s need to find a viable alternative that offers these waste products a second chance. Through Raspons we give it to them in the form of compostable cardboard-like products, which are can be used in the winery itself to introduce the bottles for marketing, as merchandising items or as plasticulture products for vine cultivation, seedling protectors,” the researcher specified.
The project, which will conclude in 2024, is promoted by the La Viña Cooperative, which is responsible for determining a methodology for the recovery and conditioning of agricultural by-products and which will in turn work on the development of boxes and cases for use in the agricultural sector. For its part, Aimplas will contribute with its extensive knowledge of bioplastics in the formulation and obtaining of new compounds with improved properties, while their final validation corresponds to Comav.
The initiative is aligned with the conclusions of the Circular Economy Innovation Committee, which advocates for the more efficient recovery of waste and, specifically, for the exploration of alternatives to mechanical recycling as a way to take advantage of waste. Likewise, Raspons falls within the main axes of the Intelligent Specialization Strategy of the Valencian Community, S3, coordinated by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Commerce and Tourism, directed by Nuria Montes.
