Our Innovations
our innovations
45 YEARS OF RESEARCH AND MORE THAN 200 PATENTS FILED
All the products produced and marketed by SPHERE group are essentially products for regular consumption, facilitating food preservation and good waste management.
Our eco-designed products integrate all environmental aspects in their design and development. The SPHERE group aims to minimise their impact across their whole life cycle: extraction, production, transport, use and end of life. This eco-design approach, intended to reduce our products’ negative impacts, is part of the company’s overall approach: CSR document.
As such, the group’s development strategy relies on the use of raw materials with minimal environmental impacts.
The development of these innovative products addresses two key concerns for the group: the environmental impact of these materials and the end of life of finished products.
A growth and differentiation strategy
Strategy 1
A pioneer in the research and development of environmentally-friendly materials
SPHERE and its subsidiary BIOTEC are continuously working on the research and development of new bio-sourced, compostable materials that are biodegradable in land and marine environments.
Strategy 2
Compliance with European labour laws and standards for group products and production facilities
Compliance with quality, safety and environmental standards is a fundamental approach for the group.
Within the national and European bodies responsible for changing regulations, the SPHERE group plays an expert and advisory role.
Strategy 3
A sustainable partner for its customers
SPHERE anticipates the needs of its customers, offering them innovations or optimising existing solutions and supporting them in their commercial expansion.
SPHERE offers its customers personalised advice in the creation of tailor-made and eco-designed products.
Strategy 1
A pioneer in the research and development of environmentally-friendly materials
SPHERE and its subsidiary BIOTEC are continuously working on the research and development of new bio-sourced, compostable materials that are biodegradable in land and marine environments.
Strategy 2
Compliance with European labour laws and standards for group products and production facilities
Compliance with quality, safety and environmental standards is a fundamental approach for the group. Within the national and European bodies responsible for changing regulations, the SPHERE group plays an expert and advisory role.
Strategy 3
A sustainable partner for its customers
SPHERE anticipates the needs of its customers, offering them innovations or optimising existing solutions and supporting them in their commercial expansion.
SPHERE offers its customers personalised advice in the creation of tailor-made and eco-designed products.
Investing in more environmentally-friendly materials
As part of its development strategy, SPHERE tackles a variety of challenges, more specifically the environmental challenges of the different countries in which it works. Adapting to international regulations also makes it possible to better respond to its customers’ needs and to offer consumers environmental answers.
- Increasingly adapted and sustainable
- Designed in accordance with a circular production and consumption model
- Addressing the question of the end of life of our products
To date, three major sets of innovative materials have been developed and marketed by SPHERE:
- Recycled plastic
- Plant-based plastic
- 100% bio-degradable and compostable material
Recycled plastic: preserving natural resources
As part of its global ecological product range, SPHERE has been incorporating a very high proportion of recycled plastic into its polyethylene products for more than 20 years (50% of SPHERE’s total production).
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Waste from our production facilities is recycled on site and re-added into production to limit the impact on the environment. Exterior plastic waste is also reprocessed for re-use. In this connection, SPHERE also purchases large quantities of recycled plastic pellets from recyclers.
Finished products
This raw material is used in the manufacture of the Group’s bin bags and packaging products.
End of life
The Group offers local authorities an efficient service for the recovery and recycling of bags used for the collection of household packaging.
Finished products in recycled polyethylene are recyclable, like virgin materials.
Plant-based plastic: reducing CO2 emissions
Since 2011 SPHERE has used plant-based polyethylene, a material made from sugar cane ethanol. This material offers the same performance as fossil polyethylene: durability and impermeability.
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The life cycle of the plant-based polyethylene bag, from its production to its recycling, generates up to 95% less greenhouse gas emissions than the same petroleum-based polyethylene bag.
Finished products
SPHERE uses this material for its bin bags, freezer bags and cling films.
End of life
Plant-based plastic products can be recycled with plastics in fossil polyethylene to produce new plastic products.
ACV Study 2011 - PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Bio-sourced and compostable material
Since 2005, SPHERE has developed a range of products made from a bio-sourced and compostable material based on inedible potato starch produced in France without GMOs and fossil or plant-based co-polyesters.
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Finished products
SPHERE produces bin bags, disposable cutlery, fruit and vegetable bags, coffee capsules, etc. made from its bio-compostable and compostable resins.
Bio-compostable products are certified by the OK compost INDUSTRIAL or OK compost HOME labels for a wide range of thicknesses.
End of life
Bio-compostable bags can be collected with organic waste (food and garden waste) for industrial or domestic organic recycling.
The material is completely bio-assimilated (totally ingested by micro-organisms) in maximum 6 months (12 months for domestic composting due to temperature differences).
Composting (domestic or industrial) results in two products: compost, which is used as a natural fertiliser to enrich the soil, and/or renewable energy.
Standard
Bio-compostable resins comply with the French standard NF T51-800 for domestic composting. They comply with the French and European standard NF EN 13432 for industrial composting in a wide range of thicknesses.
The materials of tomorrow
Biodegradable material in aquatic environment
On the verge of meeting one of the greatest ecological challenges of the 21st century: plastic pollution of aquatic environments (seas, lakes and rivers).
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This new material is revolutionary on several levels:
- It is rainproof during use and its resistance is equivalent to that of conventional plastics.
- It is digested by the micro-organisms found in all natural environments, i.e. land, sea, lake and river, without being harmful to ecosystems.
- It disappears completely, i.e. without leaving any microplastics, after a few months depending on the conditions and type of material, while conventional plastics accumulate in the seas for centuries.
- The ingestion of particles by wildlife is not toxic.
This material will thus allow the production of a range of specific products to limit the pollution caused by accidental spillages into both land and aquatic environments. This material is not intended to be thrown into the environment and will not erase the damage caused up until now by pollution in the oceans, but it will help to reduce it.
Finished products
Green and organic waste collection bags, fruit and vegetable bags, reusable bags, fresh food packaging, etc.
Other applications are being studied, in particular for plastic tableware (cutlery, cups, etc.), certain hygiene products (cotton swabs, etc.), but also for agricultural uses (mulching, string, clips).
End of life
The testing of biodegradable material in the marine environment has certified that it can be used for industrial and home composting. Consequently, it can be collected with organic waste (food and garden waste).
Standards
The European Single Use Plastics (SUP) Directive recognises the crucial role of scientific research and innovation in the fight against land and marine pollution caused by plastics.
It provides for the monitoring of scientific and technical progress in the field of research into biodegradable materials in the marine environment and, in a desire to provide a harmonised framework for the development of this innovative technology, stresses the need to develop a European standard on marine biodegradability.
Biodegradable and compostable materials thus complement existing solutions for achieving the objectives of the circular economy.
To date, the only label covering almost all aspects of marine degradation (disintegration, bio-assimilation, non-toxicity) is the OK Biodegradable Marine label from TüV Austria - Belgium (formerly Vinçotte, acquired at the end of 2017).