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Lactips builds its future with a new plant in the Gier Valley

Press release

Gradual ramping up of production capacity and diversification of the markets served
Redevelopment and extension of a former regional industrial site to bring it into line with ecological standards
Recruitment of new skills across all operations

Saint-Jean-Bonnefonds, October 9, 2020 – Lactips, the French company specialized in producing a soluble plastic with zero environmental trace, is moving into a new industrial development phase with the launch of its project to build its new plant in Saint-Paul-en-Jarez (42), in the Gier Valley. This program, led by Lactips, brings together a number of industrial, financial and local stakeholders, highlighting the commitment to further strengthening France’s industrial fabric to serve innovation.

Launched in July 2018, this industrial project marks a major turning point for Lactips, which will now have increased production capacity, in line with its ambitions to serve multiple segments across the vast packaging market. The new site, located in Saint-Paul-en-Jarez, a former coal-production region, will bring back to life a former regional food processing plant, which was shut down in 2018, while adding an extension. Lactips’ new 12,000 sq.m site will include a 2,500 sq.m production building and 1,000 sq.m administrative building, with a total floor space of 4,200 sq.m. The renovation and construction work will exceed the standards in force, particularly in terms of materials and energy consumption, as well as the equipment used.

Lactips brings new life to a site closed in 2018 and creates green jobs

The new premises, acquired as part of a €6m real estate project through the creation of a dedicated SCI property investment company (Lactips, NOVIM and BPI Investissements), will house various teams focused on developing Lactips’ activities. From the construction phase, Lactips is planning a recruitment campaign for a dozen R&D, commercial operation and production positions in order to put everything in place for the site to be operational as soon as the work is completed. Moving forward, this new industrial site will require around 30 additional staff with diverse profiles to support the development of the first plastic with zero environmental impact.
At the heart of the Gier Valley, the future plant will make it possible to bring back to life France Crème’s former whipped cream production unit, closed in 2018 by a foreign industrial firm, and to capitalize on the existing assets and local resources, notably recruiting two of the site’s previous employees.

Gradual ramp-up of production capacity supported by major investments

This industrial regeneration, selected for the national “Territoires d’industrie” program, will require nearly €30m to be invested over several years. These investments, particularly in the production facilities, made possible by the recent round of fundraising with the SPI fund, managed by Bpifrance, and Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation (MCHC), through Diamond Edge Ventures, entering the capital, will enable Lactips to accelerate the commercial development of its innovative technology.

From its launch, planned for 2021, this new plant will be able to produce 3,000 tons of pellets per year (compared with 1,500 currently), while ultimately targeting 10,000 tons per year. Lactips will be able to gradually install up to six production lines and develop its range of solutions for the sustainable soluble packaging and single-use plastic markets, while also ensuring compliance with the specific standards for food packaging. Alongside the administrative and sales offices, the R&D teams will benefit from a laboratory and new equipment, as well as a dedicated development and testing line.

“Lactips was founded with a view to proposing a new way of looking at plastic production, with respect for the environment, providing a solution that is aligned with the needs of both industrial firms and consumers. The steps that we have successfully taken since 2014 have led us to this major industrial turning point. Through our project to create this plant, we are establishing our natural plastic production, based on milk proteins, at a former whipped cream production site. This loop, which is closing, will give us the capabilities needed to develop our solutions for the food packaging market, and will enable us to support regional employment by creating green jobs. Once again, Lactips has united stakeholders from all sides around this program. Specifically, I would like to thank NOVIM and all its directors, Banque des Territoires (Caisse des Dépôts Group) and Bpifrance, as well as Saint-Etienne Métropole, the Loire department and the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region for their support. We, Lactips, an innovative industrial firm from the Loire region, are proud to launch this ambitious project and promote our unique know-how around the world”, confirms Marie-Hélène Gramatikoff, Lactips CEO and co-founder.

About Lactips

Created in 2014 by Marie-Hélène Gramatikoff, plastics engineer and business strategy specialist, and Frédéric Prochazka, PhD, lecturer-researcher at Saint-Etienne University, Lactips employs 45 people today and is working to deploy a 2,500 sq.m new production site to further increase its annual capacity to over 3,000 tons.

Learn more at: www.lactips.com

Press contacts :
LACTIPS
Charlène BÉAL-FERNANDES
beal-fernandes@lactips.com
Tel : +33 481 130490
Ou
CALYPTUS
Marie CALLEUX / Grégory BOSSON
Tel : +33 1 53 65 68 68
Email: lactips@calyptus.net

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Laundry bags for sanitary prevention : how Lactips’ efficient solution fights COVID-19 ?

COVID-19 is changing significantly the way we behave, the way we interact and the way we protect ourselves, especially at work. Occupational risk prevention measures are right now in the spotlight, even more if we talk about hospital, nursing homes and other health institutions where COVID-19 is highly present or where its consequences can be devastating.

Many infectious diseases have the capacity to spread within care establishments, where large numbers of people, many of whom may be susceptible to infection, share eating and living accommodation. More than 19.000 elderly people have died in nursing homes only in Spain due to COVID-19. The provision of clean linen is a fundamental requirement of care. Incorrect handling, laundering and storage of linen can pose an infection hazard. All reasonable steps should be taken to protect residents and staff from acquiring infections in care homes. Infected linen from patients with or suspected of suffering from infections specified by the infection control officer as hazardous to staff should be treated according to guidelines of Disease Control and Prevention. Several guidelines were already published and some more are being published with specific focus on COVID-19.

According to these guidelines, linen should be separated into categories ready for decontamination, negating the need for additional handling within the laundry. Linen should be divided into different categories ready for decontamination; many care homes currently use water-soluble/alginate bag liners within cotton sacks in a wheeled trolley to aid this separation, keeping linen off the floor before taking the bags to the laundry[1].

Three categories should be used, these can be colour coded[1].

Used linen and clothing – white cotton sack. Soiled linen should be placed into a clear, water-soluble/alginate bag, clothing into a separate water-soluble bag, within a white cotton sack.
Heavily soiled/infected linen – red cotton sack. Heavily soiled items should have any solids removed prior to being placed into a red, water-soluble/alginate bag within a red cotton sack. Infected linen includes linen with blood or other body fluids present that could contain pathogenic organisms.
Clothing and heat-labile linen – off white cotton sack. This should be placed into a clear, water-soluble/alginate bag within a cotton sack. Heavily soiled clothing should be placed into a red, water-soluble/alginate bag. Manual soaking/sluicing must never be carried out. The pre-wash/sluice cycle in the washing machine should be used after removing any solids.

According to NHS Executive guidelines, HSG (95) 18 – Hospital Laundry Arrangements for Used and Infected Linen, it is recommended that infected linen should be washed in designated washer extractors. It is most important that linen likely to infect staff should be put immediately into a water-soluble bag or bag with a water-soluble stitched seam or membrane which will release its load in the wash process and which is sealed with an appropriate soluble tie and labelled as to its origin[2].

The washing process should have a disinfection cycle in which the temperature in the load is maintained at 65°C (150°F) for not less than 10 minutes or preferably at 71°C (160°F) for not less than 3 minutes. With both options, “mixing time” must be added to ensure heat penetration and assured disinfection. There must be a physical barrier between clean and used or infected linen, when carried on a vehicle at the same time. No bag of linen that is not securely fastened should be placed in a vehicle[2].

According to the Health Technical Memorandum 01-04: Decontamination of linen for health and social care, infectious linen should be sealed in a water-soluble bag, which should then be placed in an impermeable bag immediately on removal from the bed or before leaving a clinical department[3].

Water-soluble bags are also recommended for heavily fouled linen if capable of being processed by the washer and if agreed with the linen processor.
Water-soluble bags should be transferred to the designated washer without opening, followed by any washable, reusable laundry outer bag, which should be washed in a similar fashion.
In future, easy-emptying bags or automatic bag opening equipment may offer an alternative to water-soluble bags. If easy-emptying bags or an automated procedure is adopted, a bag handling procedure should be used that :
- Minimises manipulation of the bag and prevents exposure of staff to the infectious linen prior to decontamination ;
- Is fully automated for washer loading ;
- Incorporates equipment that is capable of being adequately disinfected ; and
- Requires any outer bag to be decontaminated before disposal or reuse.
It is not acceptable for staff to manually open bags containing infectious linen.
All linen identified as infectious should be placed in a red water-soluble bag.

March 27^th AFNOR published the “Masques barrières. Guide d’exigences minimales, de méthodes d’essais, de confection et d’usage” in this guideline, recommendations for the use of masks, including usage and washing are published[4]:

It is recommended before washing the masks to clean your washing machine, by carrying out a cold rinse with bleach or to run it empty at 60° C or 95° C without spinning.
The complete washing cycle (wetting, washing, rinsing) must be at least 30 minutes with a washing temperature of 60° C.
It is recommended that the barrier mask is completely dried within less than two hours after leaving the wash. Masks must not dry in the open air.
The masks should be discarded in a bin with a plastic bag (preferably with cover and not manually operated). Double packaging is recommended to preserve the contents of the first bag in case of tearing of the outer bag, during collection.
A water-soluble bag can be used in order to limit the contact of people with dirty masks during the washing phase if the mask allows it.

In this sense, water soluble bags or soluble liners that allow the bag to release the laundry without manipulating it, can be indeed an efficient solution to minimize risks in laundry operations. Lactips’ material offers the solution to stop pandemic and adopt the unique anti-infectious laundry bags adapted to the sanitary needs of users.

Validated by hospitals, Lactips designed a preventive bag to secure the handling of infected linens and limit the risk of contamination in the laundry processing channel. Push by authorities and stakeholders of the sector, Lactips sells today the unique laundry bags with soluble opening available in Europe. Put directly in the machine, the soluble opening disappears totally on contact with cold and hot water releasing the linen from the bag during the washing cycle and without leaving any sticky residues. Based on 100% natural ingredients, Lactips material addresses sanitary and ecological challenges reducing the use of single use linen and prefering biobased and fully biodegradable solution to protect humans and save environment.

Video “Good practice guide for hospital laundries to prevent contamination risks”

For more information, contact our team.

[1] Infection control guidance for care homes

[2] NHS Executive guidelines, HSG (95) 18 – Hospital Laundry Arrangements for Used and Infected Linen

[3] Health Technical Memorandum 01-04: Decontamination of linen for health and social care

[4] AFNOR SPEC S76 001

Lactips has developed a water-soluble strip, during the health crisis, for hospital laundries enabling them to isolate contaminated linen

Press release

Lactips has developed a water-soluble strip, during the health crisis, for hospital laundries enabling them to isolate contaminated linen.

Fully bio-sourced and biodegradable soluble opening strip
Solution rapidly deployed to protect professionals and the environment
Fully dissolvable without any sticky residue

Saint-Jean-Bonnefonds (Loire), July 15, 2020 – Lactips, the French company specialized in producing a soluble plastic with zero environmental trace, has developed a solution to produce water-soluble strips for sealing hospital laundry bags, particularly those contaminated with COVID-19.

Faced with the need to safeguard everyone across the supply chain for laundry operations against all threats of infection through contact with potentially contaminated linen, Lactips has rapidly developed a new application: a water-soluble strip designed to seal and limit the handling of laundry bags used by healthcare operators (hospitals, care homes, etc.).

From the first week of the lockdown, following the influx of patients, Lactips was contacted by four regional hospital centers (13, 42, 43 and 94) and an internationally renowned university hospital center covering 39 hospitals across the Paris Region that had a shortage of water-soluble strips. The company responded immediately to the urgent health situation by shipping scored rolls then designing a specific product adapted for these healthcare requirements.

Approved by all the sector’s stakeholders, and released in Europe, this new product, developed in partnership with a French manufacturer, makes it possible to secure the handling of infected linen and limit the risk of infection within the laundry treatment circuit. Placed directly in the machine, the soluble strip disappears completely in contact with water (from 40° to 60°C in accordance with the standard applied), releasing the linen from the bag during the washing cycle without leaving behind any sticky residue.

Lactips is helping maintain the “clean circuit” chain for a range of stakeholders (senior housing, laundry facilities and transport providers). Through this solution, Lactips is once again supporting industrial operators by giving them the means to satisfy the expectations of customers looking for natural and fully biodegradable solutions in order to protect people and the environment.

Lactips responding to health and ecological challenges

During the health crisis, with a shortage of supplies of the strips normally used, the hospital sector has had to find alternatives. Thanks to Lactips, healthcare operators can now source supplies of sealed bags that integrate Lactips’ fully biosourced and biodegradable technology, replacing the existing solutions manufactured with petroleum-based products. To ensure a rapid response to their requirements, Lactips developed not only the technological solution, but also the finished product, in partnership with a leading firm from the bag packaging sector, supplying the bags.

« Initially, we were able to respond quickly to provide a temporary solution for healthcare stakeholders who were on the front line during the epidemic. Faced with growing demand, thanks to the unprecedented mobilization of our teams, supported by local industry, Lactips was able to develop, in record time, an effective and approved solution that is continuing to be used by the hospitals today », explains Pascal CHABANCE, Head of Sales at Lactips.

« In the context of the COVID-19 epidemic, our values of protecting people and the environment, which are core pillars for Lactips, drove us to support the hospital world in response to the health emergency. I would like to thank all of my teams, who successfully put them into practice by supporting the national collective effort », confirms Marie-Hélène GRAMATIKOFF, CEO et co-founder at Lactips.

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About Lactips

Because plastic lasts for hundreds of years in our oceans, causing a major pollution issue, Lactips is manufacturing the first plastic with zero environmental impact, thanks to a pioneering technology enabling it to be produced using a natural raw material. Aligned with sustainable development challenges in the packaging sector and the needs of manufacturers, Lactips pellets are used to produce 100% natural packaging for detergent products. This new material is also suitable for food products. Created in 2014 by Marie-Hélène Gramatikoff, plastics engineer and business strategy specialist, and Frédéric Prochazka, PhD, lecturer-researcher at Saint-Etienne University, Lactips employs 45 people today and is working to deploy a 2,500 sq.m new production site to further increase its annual capacity to over 3,000 tons.

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