A start-up company is fusing wood with wool to create an environmentally-friendly container for transporting fresh food (or temperature controlled logistics).
We’re all familiar with Styrofoam cooler boxes, and it’s little wonder they are so common when you consider the material is cheap, malleable, easy to produce and lightweight, properties which are all hugely beneficial for mass-produced items.
However, like the rest of the plastics family, the major downside is an adverse impact on the environment, with experts claiming it can take anywhere from 500 to a million years to naturally decompose. For that reason, used Styrofoam cooler boxes are being poured into landfill sites the world over.
Now a Serbian start-up run by a small group of entrepreneurs claims to have created an eco-friendly alternative in the shape of the WooBox – a 100% recyclable container that also puts an existing waste material to good use.
WooBox containers consist of robust wooden exteriors to completely secure any content, with the insulation inside made out of leftovers from the wool industry. According to the company, around 70% of wool produced by the industry doesn’t meet the standards required to be used in the manufacture of clothing, and so essentially becomes waste material.
While WooBox products are currently much more expensive than their polystyrene alternatives, they can be reused multiple times and recycled at end-of-life. In an additional show of commitment to the environment, the team also plans to plant trees that will replace all wood used in the manufacture of the boxes.
WooBox has now taken to Indiegogo to secure crowd funding that will finance its pilot project, in the hopes that the product can become the go-to for the food transportation industry in the future.
For more information, click here.
Source: TreeHugger
