BIOPOLYMER Innovation Award: Winners have been found

One start-up detecting polymers in nature and making them usable for people. One family company recognizing that there is a snag in the world of robotic lawn mowers – and making it disappear with natural help. One medium-sized company develop-ing a new cling film, hard to distinguish from usable plastic wraps – until it ends up on the compost and is becoming soil. These are the one-sentence-stories of the win-ners of the BIOPOLYMER Innovation Award 2021. Which of them will win the main prize? This secret will be revealed at the online congress „BIOPOLYMER – Processing & Moulding“ on June 15th, where the winners will be honoured and will present their innovations to the international audience.

Traceless materials, a start-up from Hamburg, gains polymers from nature and makes them usable for biodegradable packaging and other applications. (Copyright: traceless materials)

Genisys developed lawn pegs for boundary wires of robotical mowers. The brackets turn into natural soil after the growing-in phase - instead of crumbling into microplastic over years and years. (Copyright: Genysis GmbH & CO KG)

Gruppo Fabbri, an Italian specialist for food packaging technologies developed a com-postable cling film like food traders dreamed of. (Copyright: Gruppo Fabbri)
© Copyright (c) Lorenzo Scaldaferro

[Translate to english:]

Merseburg, 28 May 2021. The applications for the BIOPOLYMER Innovation Award 2021 came from Germany, Italy and Kuwait. As intended by the initiators from POLYKUM (a non-profit support association in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany), mainly small and medium-sized companies submitted their ideas around biobased and biodegradable polymers.

The jury selected three very different candidates, which have one thing in common: „They break with usual thought patterns in their branches, persist in the face of setbacks – and have success with it“, Peter Putsch, chairman of POLYKUM and jury president, summarized after the judges’ meeting.

The following companies are nominated as award winners (listed reverse alphabetical):

traceless materials is a start-up from Hamburg. The founders convinced the jury with a new technology that enables their team, to gain and restructure polymers from agricultural by-products. In this manner traceless materials produce biodegredable materials with the potential to substitute conventional plastics, for instance in packaging. www.traceless.eu
Genisys GmbH & Co. KG is a trader of robotical lawnmowers and accessories in Bavaria. But a weird feeling did the family-owned company not leave in peace: the majority of about 6 million plastic pegs for boundary wires, which are annual sold in the own shop, probably kept forever and ever in the soil, although their job is usually done after some weeks. So the family during five years of experimentation developed the biodegradable lawn peg.
https://www.genisys24.de/ and https://www.genisys24-shop.de/haken
Gruppo Fabbri Vignola S.p.A. from Italy succeeded in a task that tried a lot of competitors before without tangible success. The specialist for food packaging machinery, traditionally producing own wrapping films, presented last year „Nature Fresh“. The cling film is almost similar to conventional cling films in transparency, tightness and handling. But there is an important difference after use: Nature Fresh is compostable.
http://www.gruppofabbri.com/en/prodotti/nature-fresh/

The laureates will be honoured at the awarding ceremony at the „BIOPOLYMER – Processing & Moulding“ online-congresstaking place on June 15th. The coveted trophies are unique handmade of biopolymers and steel. The main prize is endowed with 2.000 Euro. The three winners will present their innovations in own lectures and answer the questions of the worldwide audience.

Learn more about the Award:
www.polykum.de/en/biopolymer-award

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