A wool scarf, yes – but wool packaging? The British company Woolcool has launched sustainable wool packaging and proves that it even works as a delivery box for frozen products.
Wool is a versatile material. It has been used for a wide variety of products, especially for clothing. Sheep’s wool also regrows over and over again, is natural and, because of its complete compostability, sustainable. In addition, wool has an insulating effect, so it is even suitable as packaging.
Woolcool packaging
Woolcool was founded in 2008 and is still the only packaging company that produces high-performance insulated packaging from 100% sheep wool fibers. They offer packaging for food and pharmaceutical industries. The range of packaging is wide. Almost every form of packaging is available – from cooling boxes to courier bags, insulated carrier bags and envelopes.
The company’s goal is to reduce food waste through its transport packaging and to minimize packaging waste as well. Woolcool packaging is biodegradable; its decomposition process takes six to twelve months. But on their website they also offer various ideas for how to reuse their packaging. Woolcool has won numerous awards and works with large sustainable companies such as innocent, Eversfield or Riverford Oranic Farmers.
This is how the packaging is made:
The company points out that adult sheep have to be shorn at least once a year anyway, otherwise they would provide the ideal environment for parasites or even overheat in summer. In addition, they only take the waste wool from the sheep’s belly, because it is too short to be used for products such as clothing.
After shearing, the wool gets washed and cleaned without the influence of strong cleaning chemicals according to the ISO standard. After that the wool gets cleaned with hot water and mild detergents and ends up in an industrial dryer. In conclusion, the cleaned sheep’s wool gets felted, cut into strips and sealed in a recyclable polyethylene film. Like other cooling carrier bags, Woolcool still needs ice packs, but less than what would be the case with styrofoam, for instance.
After processing, nothing of the sheep’s wool can be seen, but what remains is the smell. Wool has a penetrating scent and so does the packaging. However, the company deliberately decided against an artificial layer of odor so that the packaging remains 100% natural.
Wool is extremely heat and cold resistant.
Wool fibers can absorb moisture from the air, minimizing moisture and condensation, and thus maintain stable temperatures. This means that the wool fiber packaging is very suitable for products that need to be heat treated and cooled. Frozen foods such as vegetables, fruit, meat, fish or cheese can easily be delivered in one of these heat-insulating packages. Woolcool packaging keeps products chilled for up to forty-eight hours.
We at ecosistant support sustainable packaging concepts and hope that they will find more appreciation in e-commerce.
Read more about sustainability in online retail here:
Sustainability in e-commerce – 5 things that environmentally conscious customers expect
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