Co-products and the circular economy?
According to the ADEME definition, a by-product is a material created during the manufacturing process of a product, whether intentionally or not. The by-product is intended for a specific use, distinct from that of the product from which it is derived. It is thus somewhere between a noble product and a waste product.
Today, the majority of by-products from the agri-food industry are used in animal feed. Flours, cakes and other dehydrated feeds come from the sugar, bakery, fruit and vegetable industries.
In the agricultural sector, the use of co-products for fertilization and fertilizer purposes is also one of the ways in which co-products can be valorized . Finally, by-products also provide energy in the form of biomass.
Since 2015, NaturePlast has made a speciality of supporting manufacturers in the recovery of by-products from their activities, particularly in the plastics industry, to create a virtuous circular economy loop.
Types of by-products
Most of the by-products we work with come from France. The processes we select are chosen for their industrial viability, in terms of volumes and quality (batch reproducibility), as well as their technical and environmental relevance.
These deposits are potentially “infinite”, so the list of available by-products is not exhaustive, and new channels can be identified and validated according to a precise need.
It is therefore entirely possible to work on new by-products as part of acircular economy project aimed at achieving coherence between the activity generating the by-product and its reuse.
Food and beverage industries
Seafood products
Natural fibers
Other sectors
Valorization of by-products specifically in plastics processing
With its BiopolyNov R&D center, NaturePlast works with manufacturers to develop new ways of valorizing their by-products in the plastics industry. In most cases, they can be incorporated into plastics or bioplastics to create new composite materials.
Plastic becomes a binder that can be used to integrate almost any type of filler , provided certain quality standards are met: moisture content, absence of pollution, particle sizes, etc.
NaturePlast has been producing and marketing a unique range of biocomposites filled with by-products since 2015 .
The innovative biocomposites resulting from this work offer an environmental advantage through the valorization of waste or by-products in new materials.
In addition to reducing the volume of waste to be processed, they also help reduce the volume of plastic used to manufacture the same product.
Biocomposites, for example, can be reused by the producer of the by-product: the generation of a waste product can be used to manufacture a product or packaging that can be used by the company (e.g. using by-products from the hemp industry to produce fence posts). Lifecycle analyses can also attest to the environmental performance of the products obtained.
Unlike the fillers traditionally used in the plastics industry (talc, calcium carbonate, glass fibers, etc.), by-products are renewable.
These biocomposites also enable highly atypical designs which, for example, cannot be obtained by simple coloring. For manufacturers and consumers alike, differentiation is immediate at the sight of the product.
To sum up, the plastics developed in this way can be :
- Valued in all sectors of the plastics industry, depending on the properties obtained.
- Used in the company’s own applications for the creation of new products, packaging, etc.
Our production and R&D centers are equipped with compounding equipment (to produce blends), injection or extrusion transformation processes (sheet or thin-film calendering), and a characterization laboratory.