Aakar Innovations win the 13th Global Bioplastics Award

Aakar Innovations (Belapur, Mumbai) has received the prestigious annual ‘Global Bioplastics Award’ for their compostable sanitary napkins. The prize was awarded by bioplastics Magazine to the winning companies on December 4, 2018 during the 13th European Bioplastics Conference in Berlin, Germany.

The affordable, high-quality, 100% compostable sanitary napkins are marketed by Aakar Innovations under the brand name Anandi.

Menstruation, the most natural biological phenomenon for women, is considered dirty and impure throughout India. Issues such as lack of awareness, lack of access, and unaffordability force approximately 300 million women to rely on old rags, plastic, sand, and ash to address their sanitation needs during their menstrual cycle.

The judges were impressed with the holistic concept, addressing the social, economic and environmental elements at the same time, as Michael Thielen, publisher of bioplastics Magazine pointed out during the award ceremony.

The second prize went to Bio4Pack for their PLA meat tray for fresh meat and the third prize went to Danimer and PepsiCo for their Gen 2 bio-based/compostable flexible package. Both developments seem simple at first sight, but they aren’t. And both can and will pose a significant signal to the packaging market. The PLA tray saw some huge attention in Germany including many reports on television. Big retail chains are interested. And if more such packaging gets introduced, the gap to achieving a significant amount of PLA for economic recycling is getting smaller. The second generation chips bag saw a successful market introduction in Chile. Danimer and PepsiCo are looking into PHA with its interesting potentials.

The trophy given to the award winners was made entirely from bioplastics. It was 3D-printed from different PLA/PHA based compounds filled with wood and different metal powders as fillers.