Boxes of straw a reality

Press, 12 November 1981, Page 15

Boxes of straw a reality

By

KEN COATES

in London

The production of fruit boxes made from waste straw, which has attracted world-wide interest, including inquiries from Australia and New Zealand, has begun. It is the culmination of an idea which came to a young Kentish designer and inventor, Mr Kenneth White, when the world first became aware of diminishing energy supplies in 1973. Now after a seven-year fight getting financial backing and testing equipment to make the boxes, a factory at Sittingbourne is beginning trial production runs. Money for straw box systems has come from London backers and an international chemical company which has helped to develop waterproof resins to bond , chopped straw. This makes tough, weather-nroof and cheap

boxes arid trays. About 100 million non-returnable boxes are used each vear in Britain to market fruit and vegetables. The world-wide interest is because the firm is interested in granting licences to manufacture in other countries. Mr White says the price of non-returnable packaging is high, and is increasing all the time. “We are about 20 per cent cheaper than comparable fruit trays,” he says. Each year, about a quarter of the 10 million tons of. straw produced on British farms during the cereal harvest is burned. At the end of their lives, boxes made from straw can be chopped up or ground and the material spread as mulch on the land. They could be useful in countries where trees are scarce.