The Building Material of the Future

Construction boards
Our boards are made of food grade composite packaging, for example beverage cartons for milk and juice or single use mugs. Our raw material consists of packaging material collected as waste and rejects from production in manufacturing and filling of packages.

It depends. The performance of the boards is on par with traditional wooden construction boards. Detailed test results and certifications can be found under product specifications. In terms of finishing the surface, our boards are similar to gypsum boards, and we perform better in aspects like acoustic or thermal insulation while being strong and stable to fasten furniture on. However, in terms of fire resistance we can not compete with gypsum. In order to meet some requirements, it is necessary to coat our boards with fire resistant paint or lacquer.

We can guarantee a high and consistent quality of our products by using carefully selected suppliers of our raw materials. The grades of materials (cellulose, polyethylene, aluminum) in the packages vary minimally. The only factor that can vary is the humidity of the material. We compensate for this by measuring and vaporizing the water content in the manufacturing process.

No adjustment is needed for you as a customer or contractor. They can be installed by screws, nail guns, or glue. The same tools, screws and methods for attachment or surface treatment can be used as for wood-based boards. The board can be plastered, grinded, painted, wallpapered, tiled or puttied. Be sure to use sharp blades with few teeth to attain best results and guarantee a long life for your tools. And always use suitable safety gear for your protection.

All our raw material is hygienic and food grade. Nothing is added or subtracted in the process and therefore the end product has the same properties. A part of our raw material in our production is sourced from so called “pre-consumer”-material. This means that many of the packages never were filled. However, the majority part  comes from “post-consumer”. All material is heated to around 200 degrees Celsius during the production process to vaporize remaining moisture and sterilize the composite packaging from bacteria and other microbes. The end result is a product more hygienic than other products containing organic material or chemical glues (like a majority of wooden boards). Our product has a smell that is different from wood, it has a smell of paper/carton that can be strong the first days after production. Also, when cutting the material, some molecules can oxidize and make the smell come back for a couple of days. This disappears with time and the VOC emissions from the board are extremely low (see data sheet for detailed info).

Our mission is to enable the transition to environmentally sustainable and circular construction in the Nordics. We would not be able to do this if the price point didn’t allow mass use of the product. Therefore, we have developed the manufacturing process to use a minimum amount of labor and energy. The result is a patented technology and automated production process that doesn’t need any additives beyond the packages themselves. No glues, chemicals or even water. Only energy is added. This means we can offer prices around the same level, or in some cases even lower than traditional materials, even in our early stages with low volumes of production.

The board is unique but very versatile. Its properties are similar to wooden boards; its structure is similar to OSB, its strength similar to Plywood and can in many cases also be used as an alternative to particleboard and MDF. They are mainly designed to be used in wall construction systems, as a stabilizing board behind the surface board (typically gypsum). They can however also be used for furniture manufacturing, interior design, and other parts of house construction. With fire resistant coating they can also be used as a surface layer in inner walls, acting as a replacement of both gypsum and wood board (smooth enough to be finished, strong enough to hold furniture).

The products are in essence all the same. The raw material is the same and the production process is the same. What differs the Design board from Basic is that the surface is not covered with paperboard, so that the interior of the board is visible. Otherwise the variations are just in sizes and thickness.

We do not add any glue or binder in our process. The "glue" is already a part of the waste that we use; the LDPE film on the inside of beverage cartons that acts as the barrier between the paper carton and the liquid. This film is what makes this type of waste difficult to recycle, and also what becomes the binder in our product. We heat it up to sterilize it, to evaporate liquid leftovers, and to melt this film so that we can press everything together to a solid construction board.

Our boards are well suited for these purposes. Since we offer thicknesses up to 12 mm, they are appropriate to use as countertops, cabinet doors etc. It can be sawed, grinded, lacquered and be used for laminate and veneer in the same way as MDF. Also, with a heat gun, it can be bent and keep its shape.

The product is not rated to be used as a surface layer in most applications without fire resistant coating. It has a fire resistance class D, but can reach a B with protective paint/coating. Our board contains around 75% cellulose (wood) and around 25% LDPE (polyethylene), a plastic consisting of carbon and hydrogen. Incineration of such a plastic results in the same pollutants as when incinerating natural polymers such as wood and paper. Our boards therefore emit the same kind and the same amount of toxins as pure wooden products when burning.

Material made of wood is usually viewed as the greenest construction material since the wood contains CO2 absorbed from the air. Since our construction board consists of 75% cellulose fibers (wood) it also contains 75% the amount of bound CO2 compared to wooden products. We also prevent the CO2 emissions that would have been generated if the composite packaging would have gone to recycling, where more than half of the content would have been incinerated. Our circular solution means it can be used, recycled and reused over and over again. To sum up, depending on method of calculation our product contributes to 80-90% less CO2 emissions than other construction materials, which makes it an obvious choice for sustainable construction (0.42 kg Co2e / m2).