PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The current pulp and paper industry is mainly wood fiber based, resulting in a resource intensive and high polluting sector. The unsustainability of the currently used processes lies in different factors, but mainly in the high consumption of wood fibers, energy, water and chemicals. Given the current downhill evolution of climate change and the pressing need to reduce net CO2 emission, it is clear that it is necessary to thoroughly revise the entire paper supply chain and replace conventional manufacturing approaches and non-renewable resources with new sustainable and future-proof technologies utilizing renewable resources. The STRAW_LIFE project will play a key role in enabling this transformation at an accelerated pace. The main objective of STRAW_LIFE is to demonstrate and validate the production of high-quality paper labels and folding carton with straw fiber instead of virgin wood fiber at industrial scale. This will be accomplished by mobilizing residual waste from barley and wheat cultivation, hereby transforming the current production process into a circular model and potentially realizing CO2 emission savings of 1.671 M of CO2 eq saving on a global level and 1,70 M kg of CO2 eq on EU level. In addition, a new technology for straw pulping, called the "Phoenix process", will be deployed, which is licensed from the US-based company Suitable Fiber Technologies. The process uses 15% less energy, 95% less water and almost avoids all use of harmful chemicals. Therefore, aside from the environmental impact of replacing virgin fiber with straw fiber, an additional impact is realized by using the new straw pulping process, which is a relative saving of 52% on a yearly basis. The total accumulative impact by 2025 is expected to be reduced by 3.2 M kg CO2 eq by 2025 and by 1,70 M kg CO2 eq by 2029 in the EU region.