Winners of plastics prize convened by Ellen MacArthur and Prince Charles announced at WEF

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has announced winners for its Circular Design Challenge at a presentation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The winners share $1million and join a yearlong accelerator program, in collaboration with Think Beyond Plastic, working with experts to make their innovations marketable at scale.

The winners are:

University of Pittsburgh, for flexible and durable packaging made through nano-engineering; Aronax Technologies of Spain, for a recyclable, magnetic coating that replaces multi-layered packaging; Full Cycle Bioplastics, for packaging made from wood and plant waste, which can be fed to bacteria and turned into new plastic again; VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, for cellulose packaging that feels like plastic; Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research, for an organic coating for plastic that makes fresh food packaging compostable; MIWA, for delivering groceries without single-use packaging and cutting household plastic waste; Algramo, for a product measurement app; Evoware, for a seaweed-based packaging that replaces billions of small bits of plastics with a nutrient boost; Delta, for a water soluble sachet for restaurants; CupClub, for a returnable cup ecosystem, and TrioCup, for a one-piece cup that eliminates the need for plastic lids.

Ali Harlin, Research Professor at VTT, explained the development of his product: “By optimising the layer structure, we can improve the technical properties and reduce the amount of materials used. If the package was manufactured of one cellulose-based material only that would meet all the requirements for a good packaging material, the package would be very thick and heavy.”