Great Wrap launches compostable pallet wrap

Great Wrap is piloting a world-first in innovative, sustainable packaging solutions. The Melbourne-based material science company has launched a compostable pallet wrap, made with food waste to combat the global reliance on petroleum-based pallet wrap and plastic pollution.

The compostable pallet wrap is made of food waste and can be home composted or repurposed to create new materials and returned to the soil to add microbial value to agricultural land. When the product is composted and returned to soil it can decrease Australia’s carbon footprint by over 100,000 tonnes every year, lowering our dependence on fossil fuels.

Australia sends over 100,000 tonnes of stretch wrap to landfill annually, including cling film, catering film, silage film and pallet wrap. Pallet wrap is a critical part of the global supply chain, and petroleum based pallet wrap is very rarely recycled and more than 90 percent of it goes to landfill.

Jordy Kay, Co-founder of Great Wrap, says, “We’ve completed commercial trials with major Australian retailers, food and beverage manufacturers and household name brands, and their feedback is consistent — Great Wrap performs as well as petroleum-based pallet wrap. We’re calling on all Australian business owners to switch because the high-quality product means the only shift is where they purchase it.”

Great Wrap operates out of a state of the art 10,000sqm Tullamarine facility that is set to make make 5,000 tonnes of compostable stretch wrap in 2023, with a goal to make 20,000 tonnes by 2025. With these goals in mind, the company is set to be Australia’s largest stretch wrap manufacturer, significantly decreasing the need to import stretch wrap from other parts of the world.

This week, the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate scientists have issued their latest report, urging government and businesses to reduce their emissions and warning the small window of time to drastically change behaviours is closing.  The IPCC Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report is authored by almost 300 scientists across 67 countries, and highlights the crucial need to reduce emissions. “The era of big polluters trading our future for a quick dollar must now come to an end,” the Australian Climate Council’s Director of Research Dr Simon Bradshaw said. “Coal, oil and gas needs to be phased out and left behind in the polluting past where they belong, replaced by the clean industries of the future.”

While currently targeting Australian plastic waste, Great Wrap also launched its direct-to-consumer line in the US in 2022. Their international demand is growing as businesses and governments understand they need to support climate-positive innovations.

In addition to manufacturing Compostable Pallet Wrap, Great Wrap is working on its own pallet wrap collection service. By 2025, the company plans to open a biorefinery that will convert local potato waste into 20,000 tonnes of PHA – a marine degradable material made from microorganisms metabolising potato waste.

Julia Kay, Co-founder of Great Wrap, says, “We’ve had a huge demand building over the past three years from businesses far and wide. Most businesses, whether you know it or not, are using petroleum-based pallet wrap to send and receive their goods. This product is unavoidable, it is essential, and it’s a global problem that we are solving.”

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