Kruger to produce tissue products from bamboo
Company is researching ways to transform bamboo into quality tissue in order to add the renewable resource to its EnviroCare line
Kruger, Canada’s largest tissue paper manufacturer, plans to make some of its products from bamboo as an environmentally sustainable option for consumers.
According to Dino Bianco, Chief Executive Officer at Kruger, the company is researching ways to transform bamboo into quality tissue in order to add a renewable resource to its EnviroCare line by 2023. The company, based in Mississauga, Ontario, is likely to buy the raw material from Asia.
“The biggest issue with bamboo is you just can’t get the quality that North American consumers want. We will try to improve the quality of it, and we would put it under our environmental brand as a choice for consumers who want that,” the executive said in an interview.
Because it is a perennial and rapidly growing plant, bamboo is considered a renewable natural resource and, according to Bianco, currently this raw material is responsible for only 1% of the toilet paper produced in North America.
Traditionally, tissue products such as toilet paper and paper towels are produced from pulp – a byproduct of lumber production -, but the growing demand for wood used in the construction and renovation of homes has raised prices significantly, making the raw material more expensive.
