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MAX Burgers x PulPac x Liplid

Liplid coffee cup lid / Source: Pullpac
EuropeFood & BeverageMoulded FibrePackagingPulPac Dry Molded Fiber
4 MINUTE READ

Nadine Smith

WHAT WE SAY:

We are not sure what is more painful - that we turn to plastic for the 300 billion coffee cup lids produced each year, or that they are so bad at their core function, leading to scalded fingers and a generally terrible drinking experience?

Every coffee drinker will love the Liplid, an easily recyclable and biodegradable lid made from PulPac’s Dry Moulded Fibre that sits inside the cup, reducing spillage. But this is no student design concept: Sweden’s sustainable pioneer Max Burgers has ordered two million of these. It all seems almost laughably simple and obvious - which, as every designer knows, is the ultimate accolade.


KEY FACTS:

  • A collaboration between three Swedish companies - MAX Burgers, Liplid and PulPac - will see the roll out of the first two million Liplids (a cellulose-based Dry Moulded Fibre lid for hot drinks) across the burger chain’s restaurants in Sweden towards the end of 2022.
  • Liplid is 100% plastic-free, recyclable through the paper waste stream and is claimed to be biodegradable in soil and the ocean.
  • Due to the dry press process, the Liplid is thinner than wet pressed fibre products and uses 25% less material than conventional beverage lids.
  • Liplid was a winner in the 2022 Worldstar Global Packaging Awards, Packaging Materials and Composites category.

DIVE DEEPER:

  • PulPac state 300 billion plastic lids are produced annually, representing over 1.5 million tonnes of plastic, with many of these destined to end up in the ocean.
  • PulPac is the creator of its proprietary Dry Moulded Fibre material, which it licenses to production partners, such as UniCup Scandinavia, the company behind Liplid.
  • Dry Moulded Fibre makes it possible to create thinner pulp products than traditional fibre pressing methods. This thickness enables the production of nestable lids, a required feature.
  • Along with reducing the amount of material required, PulPac reports that its dry process can also reduce its products’ carbon footprint by up to 80%, when compared with traditional fibre moulding practices.
  • Liplids are made out of Dry Moulded Fibre produced from Swedish spruce and pine, reducing raw material transportation emissions.
  • Liplid is certified food safe compliant under FCM Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 and GMP Regulation (EC) 2023/2006.
  • The company says that it is still choosing a suitable coating in order to give its lids the desired durability, although it is planning to use a fully natural material.
  • While the Liplid is 100% biodegradable in both the soil and the oceans, it also makes clear that this is not a good outcome. Recycling remains the desired end-of-life route.
  • The Liplid rollout is just one of Max Burgers’ many pioneering sustainability initiatives: it was the first restaurant in the world to label their menu with dishes’ carbon footprint data and it is now working towards transitioning to being a ‘climate positive’ restaurant chain. The chain was selected as one of the world’s most innovative companies in Fast Company’s 2019 ‘World Changing Ideas’ feature.

"The world needs smart and functional alternatives to single-use plastics. Using PulPac’s...approach, we...produced a fully recyclable, plastic-free and biodegradable cup lid, with a new and unique design – bringing a new drinking experience to the market."

Jesper Berthold - CEO, Liplid.


Key Design Considerations:

What is the impact of any coatings?

Liplid states that its final coatings will be fully natural and will not impact the recyclability of the lids. However, you should confirm this and ensure that the chosen coatings will not have a negative impact if the lids were to biodegrade in the natural environment.

Better design that is also plastic-free

It might pain us to say it given our mission, but Liplid’s positioning is spot on: in listing the lid’s benefits, its sustainable credentials come in position five of six. We know how important it is to go plastic-free, but customers care about their drinking experience first. Can you find similarly powerful ways to ‘sell in’ the shift to plastic-free as part of a wider move to a better product?

This is just a single step on the journey

We hope we have got you excited about the Liplid. But it remains an incremental change and we need lots of incremental changes, fast. Just consider the entire coffee cup and its lifecycle: what is the main beverage container made from; what is the coffee/tea/hot chocolate packaged in prior to preparation; are the stirrers and sugar packets plastic-free; how are all of these transported to the restaurant? And that is before you get to the rest of the fast food industry.

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