Nick Riedl (Packaging School):

We talk a lot about how to make packaging more sustainable. But an aspect that many people might not consider are the dyes and pigments that are used to create color. As with any step in the packaging process, this too can be improved upon from a sustainability standpoint. And the team at Nature Coatings are among the leaders in developing innovations in this area. We sat down with Jane Palmer, founder and CEO of Nature Coatings, to learn more about the ways in which sustainable dyes and pigments can help the packaging industry and how they've been able to transform common wood waste into a better performing black pigment.

Jane Palmer (Nature Coatings):

So, before this business, I had a dye house in Los Angeles, and we were dyeing apparel for brands. And very long story short, we were using existing plant- and insect-based dyes that had been around for thousands of years—you know, found in King Tut's tomb, the Mayans were using them, you know, very romantic, beautiful stories, but very poor performing, very expensive, use a lot of water. And I saw that there was a demand for something like this in the marketplace, but this was not the correct product or type of dye or pigment to really scale and make an impact. So, I had a, you know, crazy idea that I could essentially invent a modern day bio-based pigment that would be high performing and cost competitive. 

You know, there's often a lot of industry in lower income parts of the world, including the US, and that industry is often polluting and it causes all kinds of problems for the environment and the health of the community—of people living and working there. And I just feel so strongly that we don't need to compromise our health or our environment to have the color black, like that just makes absolutely no sense to me. And so it was really important to me to create something that is healthier for people who are actually using and making this pigment. You know, it doesn't contain any carcinogens. It's . . . I just feel that everybody should have access to that type of healthy product and chemical and manufacturing. And that's through the entire supply chain. So, it begins with the people who are making the products and then applying the products and then, you know, the consumers who are touching them with their hands every day, and then, also end of life.

So, to me, it was super important to make something that was cost competitive because of course, that's where the barriers are. And we've done that. So, we've made something that can be adopted in a, you know, in a lower priced item all the way through having the performance to also work in luxury essentially. 

We have developed a new product line under the title BioBlack, and it's a new black pigment made from wood waste. So, it's an alternative black pigment, and it's all coming from FSC certified wood waste, which is super important because that means it's fully traceable. We know the exact forest it's coming from—it's actually within about 60 miles of our manufacturing plant in the southeast. And the wood goes to a lumber or paper mill, their waste goes to a low value chipboard maker, you know, something like that. And then their waste is usually burned and landfilled. And we step in before it's burned, and we're able to use that as our feedstock for our pigment.

And so, we've developed a proprietary process to transform that wood waste into a black pigment. The entire process is carbon negative, so that's a huge selling point for us. And the pigment itself does not contain any carcinogens like PHs, benzene, that are found on many petroleum-based black pigments. It's also, the pigment itself is very high performing. We've passed automotive testing, for example, so it doesn't fade or change color in the sun. And it's price competitive.

And as I was mentioning before, my background is in textiles, so that's where we started. And we've been adopted by many big brands—Levi's is one of our biggest customers, which is very exciting. But we're also discovering now and over the last couple years that our pigment is suitable for almost any application where black pigment is being used in specialty ink applications. So, we've been working with companies that create inks for packaging, both for paper and film and cans and bottles, actually too, in the US, which is great. And looking, we're getting into paint and, you know, bioplastics and other areas too.

Well, I think it's a super exciting time to be involved in sustainability because people, including corporations are starting to take it more seriously. I think that it's important to look at products holistically. So, as you mentioned before, we're providing the pigment, and that's, that's only one part. And I think in order to make a really big impact, we encourage our customers and suppliers to look at the entire packaging solution. So, you know, what can they put together from the ink side to the raw materials side to even the manufacturing side and incorporating things that use less energy or less water or can promote better recycling at end of life, you know—how can that all be combined to make the most impact? And I think that's really critical because there's not only one silver bullet solution out there that's gonna solve all of our problems. 

So, it's really a challenge for corporations and industries to see how they can tie it all together. But the thing I think is exciting is that there's so much technology out there that it is possible now, where before maybe that wasn't—where you can make, you know, really a total complete package. It's going to be iterative. I think that's the biggest lesson—is that we're not going to see an entire shift in the marketplace overnight. It's going to be iterative. But what we're finding is that our customers are willing to start to incorporate our pigment in all projects moving forward. Maybe they can't retrofit or replace black pigments in legacy formulations, but moving forward they'll use ours.

And so there's gonna be this bridge of time that it, you know, it just, it's just gonna take, that's just reality. And then I think it's also just about performance and price basically. So, as I'm sure you know, everything comes down to, well, what does it cost and how does it perform? So, we worked really hard to make sure that we're, we're actually better performing than a lot of black pigments out there. And we look, it looks nicer, it has a blue undertone, not a brown undertone. It doesn't change color. You know, it has all these nice features. And then we're also in the right ballpark for pricing. So, I think that's also something that moves a needle.

Nick (Packaging School):

We'd like to thank Jane Palmer and Nature Coatings for taking the time to share some of their expertise with us. If you'd like to learn more about the innovations being made by Jane and her team, visit them online at naturecoatingsinc.com. And as always, for more videos on the packaging industry at large, be sure to subscribe to the Packaging School on YouTube.