Vancouver: A Vancouver startup is betting that the future of packaging is not plastic, but trees.
DicinFoam, spun out of the University of British Columbia, has developed a biodegradable “wood foam” made from low-value pulp, wood fibres and forestry residues – the sawdust, chips and pulp left behind at every stage of logging.
The startup was founded to commercialize research led by UBC Professor Feng Jiang, and is now led by CEO Richard Chen and CTO Zhu Yale.
The problem it is targeting is huge. Polystyrene foam, used to pack everything from TVs to coffee machines, shreds into microplastics and can persist in the environment for around 1,000 years. At the same time, Canada’s timber industry wastes up to 30% of every harvested tree.
“Every tree that gets harvested, 30% of the tree doesn’t get utilized,” Chen said. “If we can even get a fraction of that and replace everyday existing products that are made of plastics… I feel that’s a big deal.”The solution: a homogenized wood feedstock that is fed into a custom machine to form heat-pressed foam panels.
