Beyond Microplastics: Redefining Flexible Packaging for Brands, People, and the Planet

Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are in the world. And welcome to today’s Packaging Digest webinar, Microplastics Redefining Flexible Packaging for Brands, People and the Planet sponsored by SmartSolve and broadcast by Informa. I’m Ashley Hutz. I’m the Senior Director of Sales and Marketing at SmartSolve, and I have the pleasure of being your moderator today. And we have just a few announcements before we begin. So this webinar is designed to be interactive. There’s a dock of widgets there on the bottom of your screen, which will allow you to learn about our speakers today, download resources, and share this webinar. And there’s also a Q and A session that’s going to take place at the end of our presentation. Towards the end of the webinar, we’ll also ask you to complete a survey. If you wouldn’t mind taking a few minutes to fill that out, we’d love your feedback. It’s really helpful for future events. And lastly, if you’re experiencing any technical issues, please feel free to click the help widget at the bottom of your screen or go ahead and type your issue into the Q and A and we’ll be glad to support with one on one assistance. Now onto the presentation. I’m very excited to share with you our presenters. Discussing today’s topic is Jonathan Jakobowski, Co Founder and CEO at SmartSolve. We have Vidya Nagpal, PhD, he’s our Director of Flexible Packaging at SmartSolve. Then you have myself, Ashley Hutt, serving as the moderator and I’m the senior director of sales and marketing. Now onto the presentation. Beyond Microplastics Redefining Flexible Packaging for Brands, People and the Planet. We’re really excited about this opportunity to share with you. So hello everyone, this is Vidu Nagpal. I’ll be walking you through for next few slides. So starting with flexible packaging, as we know, flexible package, there are mainly two packaging formats, rigid and flexible. But flexible packaging has gone very popular, actually it is growing rapidly and right now it’s what twenty one percent of one hundred and eighty billion dollars US packaging market. And the reason for that is that flexible packaging offers convenience, it offers performance and offers cost benefits as well. So speaking of convenience, we know flexible packaging in our daily lives is everywhere in all the different verticals and industries starting with food. We know it is when we go through drive throughs, we get this sachets in flexible packaging. We have candies in flexible packaging. Even in our household items, we have pots that come in flexible packaging. So it’s fair to say that single use use of sachets has entered our society and it is here to stay. On the performance side, if we compare the flexible packaging with the rigid in terms of fossil fuel consumption, terms of GHG emissions, water use, product to package ratio, and as well as packaging that fills up the landfills. Flexible packaging wins hands down. Here is a table which is which was compiled by a flexible packaging association with the laundry detergent as an example. And I will not go through every metric here, but I’ll draw your attention to the last one where you’re comparing the laundry parts and flexible pouch versus in a PET container. And you can see here that in terms of the amount of packaging that ends up in landfill, the flexible packaging is less than half that of rigid packaging. And same story in cost, flexible packaging actually is at a fraction of a cost of rigid packaging. So very easy to see why flexible packaging has become so popular in our packaging formats. Good morning. My name is Jonathan, and pleasure to be with all of you today. Thank you, Vidu, and thank you for Ashley for the introductory remarks. I’d love to tell you a story, and, we know that flexible packaging, as Vidu outlined, is such such a significant piece of business. A large vertical is is, solved a lot of problems. But it also comes with a hidden price that we can no longer ignore. So I wanna take you back into the eighteen hundreds. Now my kids think I’m old because I often tell them way back in the nineteen hundreds, I’m a millennial. They they feel like that’s really old. Well, I’m taking us back further from the nineteen hundreds into the eighteen hundreds. There was a major issue in large cities such as New York and London. New York City had over one hundred and fifty thousand horses in nineteen hundred. Each of those horses produced between twenty five and thirty five pounds of manure per day, leading to roughly three to five million pounds daily dumped in the streets. London faced similar conditions with over fifty thousand horses producing a thousand tons of manure per day. That led to all sorts of issues with mountains of waste piled up in the city streets and corners attracting flies, rats, diseases such as typhoid and cholera. The stench was overwhelming. The streets were slick with manure. During rain, it would turn to sludge and would literally fill every corner and cavern of the roads. It became a crisis. By the eighteen nineties, newspapers were predicting catastrophe. The Times of London famously said that within fifty years, every street would be buried with under nine feet of manure. Real estate prices began to drop and public health deteriorated. People began to look for solutions as they were trying to solve this crisis leaving the city. I’m gonna put a a peg in that story, and I’ll circle back to it. But I I think that story in many ways equates the current challenges that we’re facing in our earth with a plastic pollution catastrophe. We believe that not only are there, a growing amount of flexibles that are being used, but the amount of tonnage that’s going into the oceans is not going to be solved through the current solutions of landfill recycling and compostability. If we maintain the trajectory that current rates demonstrate, we’ll continue to have millions and millions and millions of metric tons of waste plastic pollution being placed into our waterways and oceans. You can see this next graphic here that talks about the highest ocean plastic producers, nations throughout the world, where we see a lack of ability to, create strong systems and infrastructure for collection leads to all sorts of metric tons, hundreds of thousands of metric tons be important to the oceans every single year. This is a staggering statistic. The reason why this number is not going to decrease anytime soon is because of all of the benefits that Vidya mentioned earlier with flexible packaging, and what it has done to help reduce costs and to create convenience. And in some cases, cost savings, like in some of the examples of the nations here on the screen, is leading to a tremendous growth of individual sachets. By the year twenty twenty seven, we will have an estimated one point three trillion, sachets produced every single year. That is a staggering amount, and I’m going to pass it to Vidu to talk a little bit more about what that number looks like. Hey, Vidu, you’re on mute. Thank you, John. What we tried to do here was put it in perspective. So John mentioned eight fifty five billion SASHES were used in twenty eighteen in Southeast Asia alone. So if you do a quick math, if you think that on average size of sachet or very small sachets, eight centimeters by six centimeters, And let’s assume its density and assume that with all the multi layers of plastic, it weighs about one gram, which is very reasonable number. So if you take that number, multiply that by eight fifty five billion sachets, we end up with eight hundred and fifty five thousand metric tons of plastic that was used in twenty eighteen. And this is just with the single serve sachets alone. We are not even talking about the secondary stand up pouches that actually hold these sachets. So this is a reality and we have to face that. Now in terms of putting it visually, what does that really mean? Eight hundred and fifty five billion sachets can fill and sixty eight football stadiums, and this was the volume produced in twenty eighteen. And as John mentioned, by twenty twenty seven, this will increase to one point three trillion sachets, and now we are talking hundred and four football stadiums. So really, I mean, we are talking sachets being produced in a staggering amount. And where do we think this will all go? We know that flexible packaging, especially these small single serve sachets, they’re not getting recycled. I mean, let’s be honest about it. Most of them will end up in landfill. It’ll end up in our waterways, it’ll end up in our rivers, in our oceans. So this problem has to be addressed heads on, because if we don’t, it’s gonna create all sorts of problems. And that one of the problem being microplastics, which actually is the topic our webinar today. So this is just a very good overview that was put together, where these plastic waste generated by plastic sachets and packaging was actually tracked and seen how much of it goes into landfill versus into waterways. It’s a little bit of a busy slide. I don’t want to take up too much of my time, but needless to say is, here is that most of it actually ends up polluting the environment. So the problem is real and it needs to be addressed now rather than later. The challenge that we face is not only ecological. The challenge that we face is also becoming a human health issue of significant magnitude. One of the statements you can see here is that micro and nanoplastics end up contaminating not just waterways, but also soil, food, and various supplies. If we look at what is being done to address this at the highest levels of government, we’re starting to see even within the current administration’s understanding of the agenda, there is more and more emerging research demonstrating how micro and nanoplastics are polluting human endocrine systems, digestive systems, reproductive systems, and respiratory systems. There’s a significant pronounced effect, being demonstrated on younger children, especially younger females between the ages of eleven and fifteen. The developing research we think is just at the tip of the iceberg. We think there’s more to come because primarily the nature of how plastics, such as the ones that remain in our bodies, will in our bodies and in ecosystems, they’re not going away anytime soon. Many of these plastics will not degrade for dozens, if not hundreds of years, and in some cases, over a thousand years. I just saw a note yesterday of a piece of plastic that was found from the seventeen hundreds. I gotta figure that out because plastic wasn’t supposed to be embedded until the nineteen hundreds, but it speaks to the nature of these materials and why they’re so pernicious. And according to the laws of bioaccumulation, with us being at the top of the food pyramid, that means over time, the majority of these plastics will eventually end up in our systems if we don’t do something about it. Thankfully, here at SmartSolve, we have a a real great inner inside view on some of the research that’s being done here in our own backyard in the Great Lakes in Lake Erie. Ashlyn Malloy is one of our, interns here, and she’s a graduate student at Bowling Green State University, where she’s studying the effects of plastic leachates on zooplankton. So even in places where we have some pretty good systems of, landfill and recycling and compostability, even here, we’re seeing a significant increase in proliferation. In fact, over the last decade, research was done from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty four. There was a ten x increase in the presence of micro and nanoplastics in Lake Erie alone. The research is demonstrating the effects that that’s having on zooplankton. And once again, the story doesn’t stop in the oceans. It’s also here local. It’s here now. Many of the concerns that we’re seeing with the accumulation of these plastics is invading all sorts of systems of life, and it’s a problem that needs to be addressed. On the next slide, we’ll point out the nature of, what microplastics can do from an oral intake vantage point, inhalation, and skin contact. These are three ways that humans encounter micro and nanoplastics, and our own doctor Vidu Nagpal, wrote a blog that you could check out on our website that gets deep into this issue and why it’s so significant. I think as I remain in this slide, I promised you I’d put a pin in that story of the eighteen hundreds, and you can tell now why I shared that story. I think the story of the situation with the horse manure is synonymous with the story of plastic contamination. It feels like a problem that’s insurmountable. It feels like an issue that can’t be overcome, and it’s something that absolutely must be addressed. And that’s where SMART Solve’s story comes to play. Now one of our core values here at SMART Solve is that of humility. We know that we’re not going to be the only solution nor can we be the only solution, But we hope that our solution is a part of addressing this existential issue that we all should be paying more attention to. And I believe, the issue that was solved through manure is telling in how we can also solve the problems of plastic pollution. The solution to manure wasn’t done through governmental bodies or necessarily through regulation, although those are things that certainly discuss. The solution came through innovation. This this innovation specifically was the invention of, you guessed it, automobiles. The model t car, which came to market in in nineteen o eight. It changed everything. Within two decades, horses largely disappeared from the urban centers where all this manure had piled up and that manure crisis seemingly vanished overnight. There are solutions waiting to come to market that we believe can solve this microplastic solution pollution, excuse me, in a similar way. And one solution comes from SmartSolve. One of our, early chemists, his name is Freyo Gameda. He sat at his desk, we had a patent with a vision of trying to solve some of these issues that we saw, being ramped over time. And in this patent, we had a vision of creating a bio based water soluble, biodegradable, compostable, packaging technology that could be used for food, could be used for dish, could be used for laundry. You’ll hear more about that in a minute. And he sat at his desk and began to pray. One of our core values at SmartSolve is also innovation. And with each core value, we have a scripture passage that’s an anchor that gives us insight and guidance into how to live out these core values, in a in a way that, makes them more than just words on a wall. Well, the scripture passage for this particular core value innovation comes from Jeremiah thirty three three. We felt like we had come to a point where we we couldn’t, solve the challenge of making this, flexible packaging solution that we’ll share with you here in a moment. So doctor Gameda turned to prayer, and he started praying from this verse, Jeremiah thirty three three, which says, call to me, and I will show you the great and unsearchable things you do not yet know. And wouldn’t you know it? But within that week, he was able to figure out the solution and the right biopolymeric combination to create a world’s first innovation that we’re excited to share with you today. So I’m gonna share a video to talk about this innovation. Hope you enjoy. Imagine a world with less waste, less single use wrappers filling up our landfills, less of the very packaging meant to protect us, leaching toxins and microplastics into our bodies. Imagine a future where packaging isn’t just sustainable, it’s revolutionary. You don’t have to imagine anymore. SmartSolve has created a brand new world. Excited the the world. Excited that is redefining what packaging can be. Made from one hundred percent bio based materials, Pure nil zero empowers consumers with multiple end of life options. It can be added to your recycling, compost it at home, or even rinse down the drain. And if it does find its way into the environment, it quickly biodegrades, leaving nothing behind. Safe for direct food contact and applicable to the products we clean with and the care items we rely on daily, Pure Nil Zero eliminates plastic waste while protecting what matters most. Zero plastic, zero waste, endless possibilities. Pure Nil Zero. Brought to you by SmartSolve. So as we saw the PureNil Zero is kind, I think it’s one of a kind of water soluble packaging technology. It is designed not to create waste and that’s why we call it a zero waste packaging technology. In packaging, we talk about sustainability levers like recycling, compostability, biodegradation, all that. And those are all levers to manage waste. We actually are in the business of not creating waste. And and that’s why I think we are very, very excited about what we have to offer and talk about it today. In fact, this is the technology that I think is one of the coolest. It was it was so impressive to me that I decided to leave my career in CPG packaging and and actually join SmartSolve to promote this technology because I truly believe that this has the legs and the excitement to actually make a difference in flexible packaging. As we know, not much is working out in terms of sustainability and flexible packaging, but actually this technology offers a way out. And it’s not just about creating zero waste, actually it also engages the consumer. Because we think when the consumer now has the option to take the packaging that they have just used or taken the product out and instead of throwing it in the bin, actually they can now rinse it down in the sink and see the packaging disappear, which actually creates a wow effect or flush it down the toilet. So we strongly believe that this engages consumers. So in that respect, it’s a win for the consumer, it’s win for the brand. It’s also a win for the environment, obviously. And so now this particular packaging technology can be applied to many different verticals. We are showing some of them over here. For instance, we can use it for our laundry, dishwashing pods or the laundry machines or the dishwasher pods, but also which actually are the natural fit for this kind of technology. But then it also lends itself in agricultural space where you can package fertilizers. It lends itself in candy space, in snacks where we are we are seeing explosion of on the go snacking. So I think this will become an important technology for that purpose. It’s in the hygiene space. And so we are looking at it, we are getting a lot of good inquiries on from lot of different verticals, which is creating a lot of excitement within our company. If I may interject here, Vidyo, I would just like to highlight the huge opportunity in personal care, feminine care. We’re actually going to be at hygienics next week, but there’s a huge opportunity for removal of plastics in tampon and pad wrappers. So just something to think about. There’s a tremendous amount of waste in that industry. So, yes, thank Thank you for that. So in terms of sustainability, we talked about its water soluble properties and how it does not create waste, but let’s say if it does end up in the trash, so what are the other sustainability levers that can be utilized? So here we have put a list together for all the different claims that we make, which are backed by certification. Some of them have already been achieved, some are in progress. But as you can see, our Purneal zero is one hundred percent bio based that confirmed by ASTM standards. Since it is one hundred percent bio based, it has no plastic in it and so it does not create any microplastics. So it’s microplastic free. It also has a direct food contact certification, which is in progress right now. It is prepared in a facility which is approved for food contact, which is FSC approved and certified. We talked about zero waste. We talked we also talked about drain for the sink drains and and sinks utilization. Actually, this is where the tests are in progress. We are actually doing that to test the flushability of that. We also talked about non eco toxicity. So there are variety of sustainability levers mentioned here in case depending on what the brand needs are and what their sustainability goals are. I think we’ve kind of meet all kinds of sustainability levers. So we believe that this is a complete solution in the marketplace. But before I share vision, I’d like to just go back one slide and touch on a couple of additional points. I I see some questions starting to come in, which we love and we encourage you please type in some questions. A couple of limitations of this material is it doesn’t have very strong moisture barrier properties. It has decent oxygen transmission rate properties, a lot like PVOH. So think about PVOH films in the way that those have been used. So as you look at direct food opportunities, it’s going to be in dry or powdered goods, shelf stable foods, things that don’t, require significant barrier protection. However, SmartSolve is continually on a path of pioneering new innovation, and we are working on the next iteration of PureNil, which will allow us to have some additional barrier properties to solve more of those solutions. One thing that we are finding with a number of accounts that are beginning to adopt Pure Nil zero, it’s currently in qualification phase. It will be fully ready commercial in twenty twenty six. So the accounts that have been testing with it, one of the ways that they solve for the added barriers by using a secondary package that delivers the oxygen and moisture protection that the goods need. And then the primary package would be our water soluble Purinil innovation. SmartSolve’s philosophy is driven by a vision statement that’s bold, that’s provocative, and being honest, it’s impossible to make packaging no longer trash. We know that that’s something that we can achieve anytime soon or in my lifetime at least, but we know that that is our northern star. As a team, we spent a day, a culture day going to the planetarium here locally on Bowling Green’s campus. And as we were looking at Polaris, the northern star, it reminded me of the nature within which, many of the captains of the past of the ships would have to use that northern star to guide them on their journey. So our northern star is to do this. And if our company ever deviates from that vision of accomplishing changing packaging and turning it into something that’s beneficial to the environment, that’s biodegradable, that has recyclability or compostability characteristics, well, we’ve experienced vision drift. And I’m sitting here and behind me, you see two of the most critical documents for the United States of America, one being the Declaration of Independence and the other, the Constitution. I like to compare the declaration to the vision statement of our nation with high and soaring language, things that we have never fully accomplished, but we have to continually, as a nation, work towards. In a similar way, SmartSolve’s ethos is driven by this vision with a foundational vision and a purpose statement that is is really faith oriented. That’s why our core values have scriptures anchored to them. Of course, we have all sorts of individuals that work for us and with us of different persuasions and different faith backgrounds, but it’s that faith and belief that we are stewards of this incredible creation that God gave to us that motivates us every day to bring to the market solutions like PureNil Zero. And it seems as if the world is responding. This small company that started up in twenty sixteen, now nearly a decade old, passed that startup phase and into scale up phase as we’ve seen other innovations go to market. We’ve started to see all sorts of publications and journals picking up on this innovation that is beginning to demonstrate the solutions necessary, the innovation required to solve this plastic pollution crisis. So we’d love to work with you and, love q and a today, but also please connect with us at any time through our website. I think Ashley will probably share a little later, some of the contact information for us as individuals as well. I’m gonna go to Vidu now asking him to share about, the various categories and verticals that we sell through. So, yeah. Thank you, John. Just wanted to make be clear about the technology. It’s a heat sealable packaging technology. So it can be formed into a variety of different flexible packaging formats. We have sketched out some of the formats here. Pillow packs and stick packs are natural. These are all vertically form filled seal. We can also form stand up pouches, gusseted pouches, flat bottom pouches, quartz seal. So you can see here we have several different formats that are possible using this technology. At this point, I will also mention that we are in partnership with with converting companies and co packers who can get this format made for you or they can also co pack for you for you in a small to medium scale. So I think that helps a lot in bringing ideas or projects to life and if you want to go into the market at a small scale, partnerships would be perfect for that. So we are not just bringing the packaging technology to the table, but we are also through our partners, are here to bring it live in the marketplace. We mentioned about several verticals that this technology can be used. We talked about snack packaging where as I’ve mentioned before, the snacking on the go is on the rise, so this would be a perfect for those single juice sachets that will end up in the dustbin or and then eventually in the landfill. So there is an option to actually not do that and put it in the sink. If fem care also actually mentioned, this is a growing field for us. We are generating a lot of interest where tampon covers are being used using our technology where the covers can be actually flushed down the toilet. Laundry dish, I had mentioned before, which is a natural fit because here the product and packaging become one and the same. So the consumers, they can just take out the sachets and put it in their either laundry machines or dishwasher machines. Household cleaning, this is an interesting area where you see these spray bottles which are everywhere. And one company, PVA Hygiene actually uses our packaging technology to to use as to refill the spray bottles. So instead of putting liquid every time you can just have a concentrated sachet of powder, put it in the bottle and here you go. So this is also a very attractive application. I talked about agricultural space or vertical. This is also gaining a lot of traction where fertilizers can be put in the sachet, the sachet can then be just either put in a water can and you can water the plants plants or the sachets can be put directly on the plants and then you can water on top of it. And then personal and beauty care for packs which are travel packs or on the go packs. I think our technology would be perfectly suited for these kind of applications as well. So these are just some of the verticals that we listed here, but you can put your innovation hat or creative hat, and you can think of anything you want and come talk to us and we can we can help you and make it happen. Before I go to that next slide, Viddo, I’d like to actually ask Ashley to opine. You and I have done such a great job keeping our time condensed here, and I know we have some great questions coming through. But, Ashley, as the senior director of sales and marketing, can you talk about these markets and any other insight that you think would be helpful to individuals looking at, leveraging PureNail Zero? Yeah, we’re actually at the cleaning show ISSA in Vegas right now. So as you see me in my hotel room, that is why. But there’s just an extraordinary amount of interest, in the cleaning products industry where this can be an incredibly useful, very functionally, but also with sustainability claims. A lot of companies are looking to make really large bold statements on PAC as a way for both on the professional side, but also on consumer retail shelves as a way to stand out and a differentiator. So not only is this material zero waste allows you to make those aggressive claims, but one of the things we like to really talk about is the experience of our materials. This is exceptional. You’re creating a brand impression with the user and that is a memorable experience. And so it’s something we hear a lot from the brands that we’re talking with as well. This is great from a claims standpoint, but also from an experience standpoint. So I think all of these markets are very relevant. Like I mentioned, beauty and personal care, there’s a ton of opportunity there, especially feminine care products, household cleaning. So all of these are very relevant and yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to opine here. Very good. Well, before we get into Q and A, I just want to share one very exciting SmartSolve was announced as a JobsOhio research and development grant recipient only a few weeks ago. This million dollar grant is matched by a three point six million dollar commitment by our company in the development of a blending and compounding facility, which will allow us to produce more and more of these incredibly fascinating biopolymeric compounds that build the, the the material structure that we use to create technologies like pure nil zero. It was a pretty significant move for a company like ours. We’re the first ever company in Bowling Green to receive this r and d grant, and it’s a competitive process. The only one in the state, I believe, to receive an r and d grant this year. Usually, work with much larger companies than us, but the state of Ohio recognizes the plastic pollution crisis that we’re facing and recognizes the potential of this solution. It’s largely gonna be driven by the partners that we work with. So our aim is to work, with each of you, and your opportunity to make you the hero of the story. We’re not the heroes. We talk about this all the time. We’re here to aid and help our customers become successful at the integration of this material, whether that’s working through the machinery to make sure that it can be run properly on form fill and seal presses, which is already happening all throughout the world today, or whether it’s to talk about the barrier requirements that you may have or the limitations. Our brand promise is to be truth in green packaging. We don’t wanna come forward with a claim that’s disingenuous or misstating or overstated. Our aim is to be truthful about who we are and what our materials can do. And I’m confident today as we get into q and a that we’ll be able to answer some of those early questions. And then afterwards, we’d love to follow-up with you. Our team is very excited about this technology and seeking to help anybody who’s interested. So thank you very much for listening to the presentation. I’ll pass it back to Ashley. Thanks, John. So I it appears with so many questions in the chat here that you all know how to do that. In case you don’t, there is a question box at the bottom of your screen. If you click that, you can type that in, but we’re already seeing a flood of those come in. But before we get into Q and A, I did just want to direct your attention to the webinar survey. It’s next to the presentation window. If you closed it, you can reopen that by clicking on the icon at the bottom of your screen. We really appreciate the feedback. And so now on to Q and A. We are getting some questions in here which are really, really good. I can tell you guys are very curious and very much so engaged in what we’re talking about. So one of the questions is from Rick. How quickly does a tampon cover or wrapper dissolve in water? Vidy, would you like to answer that one? Yeah, so the solubility is pretty fast, within eight to ten seconds, the packaging would dissolve and even we have tried that in cold water. So it is very fast dissolving material. Yeah, I would agree. I think it’s actually even less. I mean, you look at dispersibility, it’s probably that technically, but you’re going to see pretty instant what that looks like. It’s actually faster than toilet paper. We’ve got another question here from Steven. How cut and puncture resistant is that product? I can maybe take this one, guys. This is actually a paper based technology. So I don’t know that we’ve done cut or tear resistance. We do have data sheets available on our website. There are some specifications there, but it is a paper based technology. So probably whatever standard paper characteristics you’re used to is going to be very similar to the performance of our materials. But John, would you add anything to that? Yeah, we definitely have machine direction, cross direction tear, data and metrics for our materials. We have different sizes and thicknesses of the material. So we’ll be launching what we call a two p n thirty and a three p n thirty substrate. The three p n is going to be stronger because the thickness of the water soluble paper, which is the raw material that’s our primary foundation off of which we build all of our technologies. That thickness is going to drive the strength properties. In fact, we’re going to be doing a five p n thirty where we have an even thicker version that will support stand up substrates, where we have a number of companies actually envisioning using that as a as a stand up pouch to contain inside of it as a secondary package, primary packages that are two p and thirty substrates. So we have the ability to move the needle a little bit on the strength properties. And like Ashley noted, as it pertains to running through your manufacturing equipment, it’s going to be much like it will perform much like a paper flexible packaging substrate. And that performance is going to vary slightly. We have a guide for best practices using our materials and packaging them. Obviously, we have to be careful to prevent water from starting to lay on the material until that until the material is formed. Yeah, we also I’m seeing a question here on PFA. So, Oshio is asked, that there is there PFAs in Pyrnyl and can we explain? John, you want to take that one? Sure. Yeah, no, there are no PFAS, no BPA. It’s PFAS, phthalate free. It’s one hundred percent bio based and derived in that manner. Yeah, great. One of the questions is, if the material is water soluble, how can you hold liquids in household cleaning? I’ll go ahead and answer this one. We’re not. This is the very first of our innovation. And so we see this as PureNil as a family. PureNil Zero is the first product in that family, and there’s a couple of different SKUs within that product. So PureNil Zero does not have super high barrier properties, so we’re not going to hold liquids today. We do see a pathway there. We have some preliminary prototypes of materials where it sounds like an oxymoron. I recognize that, but it is possible. But today with Pure Nil Zero, we’re really looking to hold, powders, dry solid type of materials. Yeah, and Ashley, I think that question is pertaining to Vidu’s comments on PVA hygiene. So if you want to comment on what they’re deploying. Yeah, great point. So what PVA hygiene is doing is, they’re a UK, company and they’re formulating and filling there and doing private labeling there. But they’re using powder fill as their application for that market. So it’s a powder formulation. It’s filled into a very small sachet. That sachet is used in a trigger head sprayer bottle for cleaning solutions. So a lot of what people are really coming to realize is we are paying to ship water around the world. And so if we can eliminate our footprint in weight and in all of that, how easy would it be to really support reuse in a sustainable way with refill packs with powder fill and water? So another question is, what does bio based mean? What exactly are we talking about here? Vidy, would you like to explain that? Yeah, sure. So bio based here means that our sealant technology is derived from nature. Due to proprietary reasons, I cannot get into the chemistry of the material itself, but it is nature derived and hence we call it bio derived. But we know that it is different from bio derived plastics like PHA or PLA, which are polymers, which are considered plastics. This is none of that. But it is a hundred percent bio derived pure, but it does not fall under the definition of plastics. If I may opine further on that, Ashley. So in addition to that biopolymer, the substrate water soluble paper is, also one hundred percent bio based. And it’s principally made up of wood pulp with the addition of an ingredient called carboxymethylcellulose. A few ingredients that we deem as grass generally regarded as safe. That makes the entire substrate one hundred percent bio based. Great. I see a question here from Penny. What is the most weight this material can handle? I assume this can’t come in contact with moisture. Great question. Thank you, Penny. Go ahead, whoever would like to answer that. And I think it’s also, tied to a few other questions I see on here, Ashley, regarding humidity. So our materials perform pretty well in environments of humidity. It does matter that when we ship materials out and usually shipped out in roll form, that we protect those with plastic from unnecessary, water introduction, but they perform in, most manufacturing environments where there is going to be a presence of humidity in the environment. The point at which that humidity condensates and turns into water and begins to affect the packaging, that’s when the dispersion would begin. But for the most part, just like, PVA and Tide pods have been shipped all around the world and used all around the world in a similar way, except probably even more stronger. It responds very well to, humidity and environments of humidity, especially when you have packaging that protects it, in places where there’s going to be a lot of humidity, say a kitchen or a place where there’s significant amounts of water. Great. Yeah. So there’s there’s oh, go ahead, Vidyo. No. I was just going to add to that that the packaging format itself is stable under high humid conditions. It’s only when it comes into direct water contact when you start seeing the material disperse. So as such, high humidity does not affect the format or the shape of the packaging. Sure. And did we answer the weight question that Penny had? I think we have seen is probably no, I think with anything we would recommend testing, but I would probably say no more than five to ten pounds, depending on each application specifically. What we’re seeing is And Ashley specifically, yeah, I’m sorry for interrupting, but you’re referring to the various thicknesses, right? Two p n to three p n to five p No, I think Kenny was actually asking how much weight can a package hold? Yeah. I think that would depend upon the thickness of the material. So if it’s a two p and thirty, I don’t think anything more than a pound would suffice. There’s gonna be limitations, with the the strength of that substrate versus a five p and thirty. So if you have high weight applications to Ashley’s point in the five to ten pound range, we would recommend that we go for a thicker substrate. Yeah. Great point. We have some questions here, from Ray. What is the standard heat seal temperature? Ray, we have a lot of resources on our website. I would really encourage you to check that out. But as far as the heat seal temperature, what would you recommend Vidu? Yeah, I think it’s standard. That’s standard in the industry, one hundred fifty C and the dwell time is half a second, which is again very standard in all the vertical form fill seal machines. So more data can be obtained on our website, but the temperature is one hundred fifty C and dwell time is half a second. Sure, Sean is asking, what are the expected MVTR and OTR of the package with the current thicknesses set up? So moisture vapor transfer rate and oxygen transfer rate for our 2PN30 and 3PN30, what would you say Vidu? Yeah, so since our material is water dispersible, we do not measure MVTR, it does not even lend itself to be measured because it does not have much MVTR. However, it has good oxygen barrier properties and they are typically in the range of twenty five to thirty cc per meter square per twenty four hours at fifty percent relative humidity. Great. So one question here is, explain more how SmartSolves flexible packaging is able to go down the drain. Someone’s curious about the water solubility of this. Yeah, I’ll take a stab at this one. So we actually had the, city of Bowling Green’s municipal utilities in and their wastewater management team in to talk about flushability standards. This is an area of continued growth, across the world with different standards that have been used, and there’s an effort to try and harmonize those primarily driven because of flushable wipes. And then the false advertising of companies that claim flushable wipes when they don’t have them. And there was a lawsuit in twenty twenty two with Kimberly Clark that ended up being settled, which created a standard under what’s called IWSFG guidance. In IWSFG, they created a minimum requirement for material breakdown such that it would go down through a sloshbox test, the drain, and then there’s a settlement test, and then there’s a biodegradation test and an anaerobic biodegradation test. So this whole test was created, and there’s an industry called Inda. We’re a member of Inda that is using an additional test called g d four to cover the comprehensive nature of claims that can be made for companies wanting to claim that their materials are flushable. Notably, all this test was made. All of these tests were created specifically for toilet paper and wipes, But we wanted to take our materials through that standard. The advantage Ashley referenced earlier, toilet paper is toilet paper actually doesn’t disperse. If you put it in a toilet, you’re going see it stick together. It’s going to remain. And yet it is flushable. Well, water soluble paper, specifically pure Nil Zero breaks down rapidly dispersing into microfibers. And because of its high rate of biodegradation, that’s worth me pointing out as well. Water soluble paper is more biodegradable than paper because it dissolves into smaller microfibers that create a smaller surface area for the microbials to get into it and to consume it. So it’s highly biodegradable. Therefore, it passes all of those tests with flying colors, which is why we can say that it’s flushable or drain safe, and we just, look at the the standard that we’ve used. In reality, there’s no real true standard except for a few states that have created regulations and, mandated for companies that have gone through that IWS FG test or the g d four test and have failed. They have to label their material as do not flush. That’s the only current regulation, but that regulation is growing. They’re seeking to harmonize it. What we know is our innovation is significantly more dispersible than any flushable wipe or toilet paper or other convention that’s out there in the market. And we, in talking with these wastewater management entities, they were very impressed. Yeah, great point. There’s a couple of different testing methodologies. Just to add to that, There’s the GD4 testing criteria, which is from Inda, the Nonwoven Association. But then there’s also IWSFG, which represents more the municipalities. So our historic flagship original product, the X series, has passed all of the Inda GD4 testing criteria, which is what’s used in certifying toilet paper and wipes. Whereas we’re actually seeking to move towards IWSFG, which is a little bit more stringent with PureNil. So we’re very excited and that testing is nearly complete. We’ve got a couple of other questions here. Minu, can this be used for the fashion industry? Yes. I’ll take this one, guys. One of the things that we see a lot of is people wanting to find ways to eliminate single use plastic and that could be whether you’re using our face material as a tag or whether you’re looking to have maybe some void fill with printed tissue paper, things like that. Or it could just wrap a product. We’ve seen other apparel opportunities for high end clothing. So yes, absolutely. I think there’s a lot of opportunity there. Let’s see, we have a question from Valerie or maybe more of a statement. Then we can start helping cruise ships being more responsible for using this type of packaging so we don’t have problems in our oceans with the slurries they’re putting out there. So that’s an excellent point. And yes, we love hearing about applications and we agree with you there. We have a question from Bonnie. What MVTR or WVTR level does the material bring at tropical conditions? I think where there’s high humidity. John, would you like to answer that one? Yes, it’s similar to our answer previously. There’s, we don’t even measure Mvtr or WVTR because the material is water soluble in nature and, is designed in that way. We would just, when using this material in tropical environments or environments of high humidity, we would work with you and your company to ensure that there is a strategy for protecting it, whether through secondary packaging or otherwise. But it performs a lot like PVOH or PVA, the tide pod concept. Well, again, once they’re readily deployed all throughout the world and our materials being used all throughout the world as well in places like India and Southeast Asia and Latin America. Many companies have been able to navigate through those situations of high humidity with great success. Yeah, one important question is Purell zero available for purchase today? I’ll go ahead and answer that. So we’re really excited. We just announced released our marketing launch of this in October. We have qualification roles that we’ve done production runs of. We’re moving into ramp stage. So this material is available today for purchase. And actually, we’re excited about our commercial launch in January of twenty twenty six. So yes, you can get qualification rolls in twenty four inches wide, twenty three point five max by five thousand foot. And they can be run through any standard form fill and seal, horizontal or vertical equipment. Let’s see, so like vanilla or prune has some water in them, so they would not work in this package even if you sealed it tightly. I think it’s worth testing. This material is direct food contact. So while it is possible to hold food products, it’s going to depend on the barrier requirements and shelf life requirements you have for your product. So I would say vanilla seems like I’m not sure if you’re talking about the liquid or if you’re talking about kind of the bean, but I think we could hold the beans if that’s what you’re looking at. But if it has any kind of liquid or moisture, yeah, this is maybe Purell zero wouldn’t be the first product, but potentially Purell one or two future renditions could. So thank you for the question. Looking at the time, I have room for one more. So the question from James is again on moisture vapor transfer rate for products that are more hydrophilic. And I think it’s an excellent question because there’s very little barrier here. You do want to think about at a formulation level how hydroscopic your materials are. Our material is hydrophilic, so it will absorb moisture from the air. So if your formulation is intended to be a powder, but it is hydrophilic, you will want to be careful with that. So we like to work with companies at the formulation level where they’re considering our materials in their barrier properties and formulating with them in mind. So I think it’s a great question. Oh, please. No, I just wanted to add to that, Ash, that our customers are managing that by putting these sachets in secondary pouch or packaging. And that’s how we protect it from outside moisture until the point it is ready for use. So there are ways to manage the moisture issue or barrier properties and and feel free to talk to us and we can help you with that. Yeah. I think that’s all the questions we have and we really appreciate your time today and we’re grateful for Packaging Digest allowing us to present this information to you today. And thank you to everyone in attendance. We appreciate your attention and participation in these excellent questions. Within the next twenty four hours, you will receive a personalized follow-up with details and a link to today’s presentation on demand. Please feel free to invite your colleagues and peers who may not have been able to join today. But I’d also like to, on behalf of our guests here, Jonathan and Vidu, thank you very much. And again, please check out our website smartsolve dot com. That’s S M A R T S O L V E dot com. Please follow us on LinkedIn. We’re on Instagram and Facebook. And we’re putting out content all the time on our website in the format of blogs. And so we’re really excited about this product launch. We think there’s a huge opportunity to innovate in this space. And so we’re really excited about that. But I’m your host today, Ashley Hutz, and thank you very much for your time.