The innovative Polish company Pomona Company Ltd has developed and registered as an industrial design in Europe, a completely compostable absorbent pad for fresh food, PADECO. It meets the global trend of stopping the flow of garbage. The next step is up to the producers of boxes and cover foil to make them compostable as well – it will be a new generation packaging set. The technologies are here and the introduction of taxation on plastics will change business calculations, so eco-friendly progress in food packaging industry will accelerate. Fortunately, the PADECO pad itself is not expensive, so it opens the way to the popularisation of eco-friendly packaging for fresh food. PADECO is already in use in recyclable packaging. PADECO – and this is the most important thing – can easily end up in bio-waste out of the box to turn into useful compost. Recycling has gone a long way, but will be followed by packaging that decomposes without a bad carbon footprint. The PADECO pad makes a great step towards meeting the “Zero Waste” postulate, enabling the complete elimination of the most eco-unfriendly component of fresh food (meat, poultry, fish, greens, ...) packaging waste. PADECO is simply bio-waste. And as such it produces a useful bio-substance. It can be used, for example, as a natural fertiliser, whether it is created in domestic or industrial conditions. This is confirmed by the tests performed - not only in POMONA itself, but also by certification bodies abroad.
Several hundred billion pads/absorbers are used in packages with fresh food (meat, poultry, fish) in Europe annually. This translates into tons of rubbish, at best to be incinerated. This situation can be radically improved by the PADECO pad, which is in fact cellulose, a laminated film made of corn. Tests in the Oklin GG02 composting machine have shown that PADECO decomposes completely within five days. Therefore, the PADECO pad introduces food packaging onto a closed circuit path, becoming a real alternative to multi-material non-natural pads. Compostability, whether in a domestic or industrial setting, will quickly become a financially attractive solution for business and will be expected by the consumer.
The PADECO® pads meet the expectations of the industry. They can be produced in the form of “custom-made” absorbers or in “bales”, wound on a roll: it is a technologically flexible product.
The use of PADECO® does not require any technological changes in the companies that manufacture fresh food packaging. Of course, their dissemination must be accompanied by regulations and an information campaign obliging consumers to appropriately segregate packaging, but it is known that this is already happening and must include the issue of bio-absorbent pads. The advantages of PADECO are already noticed by commercial networks. They even placed their first orders – for the time being outside of Poland, but that will also change.
