B4Plastics, small company, great innovations!

B4Plastics is a young technology company that designs, develops and distributes new ecological plastics. The polymeric materials are designed to fulfill application criteria. They make use of established or novel building blocks to result in novel backbones. That way, a new balance between functionality, cost and ecology is offered in the resulting materials.

 

A one-man business

With a background in corporate chemical industry, and having inventarised a wide spectrum of scientific possibilities for “greening plastics”, the time was mature to create B4plastics: help partners and customers to green their plastics products and practices. Grown from a “one-man business” at the very beginning, B4plastics now forms a small international team that develops, produces and markets its first eco-plastic products.

At B4plastics, we have a young tradition to launch products that set new ecological standards in their respective markets. This has been the case for Ecotrim, COMPOST3D® and Biorix® (see www.b4plastics.com), and each product is subjected to innovation cycles that bring them to a next generation with an improved [cost – functionality – ecology] balance. That way, the products keep up their pioneering promise over the years and challenge the incumbent plastic producers to green their product portfolio. The B4plastics products also provoke governments to speed up sustainable legislation, by showing which new ecological standards become possible in the respective market.

Innovation process

Catalisti has played an important role in the first years of B4plastics, by linking and framing the innovation practices of the company with surrounding partner companies. As a result, pioneering technology and business targets are synergized with Flemish partners, giving Flanders the perspective of world-class innovation.

The current plastics industry comes in a dynamic transition towards more sustainable practices. Legislation is kicking in, media start to report on the dynamics on a weekly or even daily basis, and customers raise their voices and give their input. Plastics are becoming the hotspot of criticism, though they have brought us admirable wealth in their first generation. It is clear that we gradually need to shift into a next generation of plastics: those that are better adapted to sustainable business practices, and those that are better understood by their users. It is the belief of B4plastics that the transition can only be successful if a socially responsible production is linked to a socially responsible consumption. Therefore, the company strives for an improved relationship between plastic products and their consumers. By developing novel ecological material platforms, and by cultivating this important relationship, the company hopes to fulfill a unique role in the plastics industry.