What Makes Our Solution Unique?

PulpWorks’ Karta-Pack™ is a patent-pending, paradigm-shifting, all-pulp-and-paper recycled package. In fact, we have the first (and proprietary) solution for replacing pervasive plastic blister packaging. 

The Karta-Pack™ is safe and effortless to open, easily branded, biodegradable, and cost-competitive with plastic blister packaging. And, although it’s tamper-evident, it poses no difficulties (or injuries) upon opening, especially to seniors, our planet’s fastest growing age group.

The Karta-Pack™ is available in a variety of raw materials, textures, colors, shapes and sizes. Custom-designed for each client, it is as versatile and elegant as it is eco-friendly.

It contains no plastics of any kind, doesn’t require incineration or industrial composting to be eliminated, and can be easily discarded in curbside compost or recycling bins.

The Karta-Pack™ will reduce the content of toxic landfills as well as the harmful greenhouse gases (GHG) released by landfills.

Research and development efforts with our strategic partner, Mohawk, are focused on a new source of fiber unique to the molded fiber industry. This fiber reportedly has a higher “aspect ratio” (length-to-width ratio) than any fibers previously tested for molding applications. In the molded fiber industry, higher is clearly better.

An exclusive license for the intellectual property related to this crystalline nanocellulose (CNC) will enable PulpWorks to bring proprietary molded fiber products to the marketplace possessing significantly higher durability and moisture resistance levels. This nanotechnology will enable molded fiber to replace plastic packaging in many categories that have been, until now, completely off-limits to any materials other than plastic. PulpWorks will be first and exclusive with these new applications.

The volatile cost of petroleum as well as the high health risks associated with petroleum-based packaging has become part of the consumer consciousness. This is now a worldwide phenomenon embraced not only by consumers but also by businesses, federal, state, and local governments as well as NGO’s.

Major consumer packaged goods companies, retailers, and e-tailers – examples include Pepsi (“plant bottle”), Walmart (“Sustainability Index”), and Amazon (“Frustration-Free Packaging”) – are listening to their consumers and leading the charge for more sensible and sustainable packaging.

In choosing the PulpWorks’ packaging like the Karta-Pack™, our clients not only demonstrate their social-environmental commitment but also their recognition that choosing sustainability enhances the financial bottom line as well the environmental one.

PulpWorks is on the leading edge of this shift in the status quo to safer and healthier packaging.

Written by Paul Tasner, Co-Founder & CEO

The Problem that PulpWorks is Solving

PulpWorks, Inc. was founded in response to a worldwide plastic pollution crisis. Merely one example, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), accounts for 7 billion pounds of landfill annually. When plastics such as PVC are broken down in landfills, methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas, is released contributing to our global warming emergency. When incinerated, PVC releases cancer-causing dioxins that harm the immune and reproductive systems with links to breast cancer, as well.

As a popular packaging material, the production of PVC alone is responsible for unleashing 130 million pounds of CO2e into our atmosphere each year. Further, PVC’s principal (60%) raw material is chlorine, and energy-intensive chlorine production for PVC packaging consumes an estimated 5 billion kilowatt-hours  – comparable, incredibly, to the annual output of some nuclear power plants.

And then there’s the plastic pollution crisis in our oceans. We have massive swirling islands (gyres) of plastic packaging debris in all of the world’s oceans. The Pacific Gyre is twice the size of Texas. The dangers to sea life and the impact on the fishing industry are well documented.

A noteworthy related issue is the hundreds of thousands of persons visiting emergency rooms annually as a result of lacerations suffered while attempting to open plastic blister packaging. (60,000 in the UK alone, last year.) Seniors, in particular, have little tolerance for this dangerous packaging. PulpWorks’ easy-to-open feature addresses this significant concern among the planet’s fastest growing age group.

Our sustainable packaging addresses the health of our planet as well as its citizens.