“That’s the dream,” says researcher Hanne Dalsvåg. If the researchers succeed, in the future you might be able to buy vegetables wrapped in packaging made from waste carrot or potato residues.
By Håvard Egge - Published 13.01.2026
“A lot of Norwegian agriculture residues currently have little value. We need to do something about this, like use these leftover raw materials in packaging,” says SINTEF researcher Hanne Dalsvåg.
She heads up the Agriwaste project, which is mapping the potential for producing packaging using residual raw materials from Norwegian agriculture. Dalsvåg and her colleague Theresa Rücker are working with several other researchers on the project.
Residual waste refers to the raw by-products left over after the main crops have been harvested, such as peels from vegetables, skins or fish bones.
“This is the way to go. We’re talking about both reducing the overconsumption of plastic and getting the most value from what we produce,” says Rücker.
She says that finding ways to increase the value of residual raw materials from agriculture increased value, including for packaging, is a current trend in Europe.
“A lot is happening in this field around the world, but it’s important for us to also look at the possibilities from a Norwegian perspective. The goal is for value creation to take place in Norway, which requires mapping the raw materials.
Compound challenge
The project team is tackling two parallel challenges in Norwegian agriculture.
We need packaging to protect the food. At the same time, it’s in everybody’s interest to reduce the amount of plastic used for this purpose today.
And it is important to utilize as much of the residual raw material as we can that is available from agriculture.
“We’re trying to combine these challenges and see if there is something that can and should be used to produce alternative packaging material,” says Dalsvåg.
Many residues could have increased value
A lot of agricultural crop residues do not have much value today – including everything from plant residues to wool and grass. In addition, large amounts of sorted vegetables with the wrong shape or colour become by-products and do not go to market.
Having as much of these products as possible to go to food or other high-value purposes is very desirable. Therefore, it is important to look at options for re-purposing any agricultural resources that cannot be used for those preferred purposes, also referred to as agriwaste.
Facts about the research
The Agriwaste research project was started in 2024, and is concluding at the end of 2025. The project has been funded by the research funds for agriculture and the food industry (FFL/JA), and is a collaboration between three institutes at SINTEF: Ocean, Manufacturing and Industry.
The pilot project overlaps with several other projects at SINTEF, including the development of prototypes for food packaging made of bark fibre, which was a collaboration with the University of Dresden.
“In this project, we studied the types of waste that exist in Norwegian agriculture and where the potential is greatest, both in terms of the properties of the raw material and what kind of production technology is most relevant,” says Rücker.
The research team has mapped the raw materials having the greatest volume, and has selected certain varieties in Norway that have high production and residual raw material that could potentially have the right properties for packaging.
These products are:
- Grain
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Wool
- Feathers
- Forest waste
Developing prototypes
“Plastic is a cheap, flexible and robust material that is suitable for many purposes. So it’s important to find out whether a packaging material made from agriwaste would be a suitable and sustainable alternative, and for which applications.
Examples of initiatives in Europe are boxes and bottles made from wood, hemp or straw, cardboard boxes made from wheat and sugar cane and wool for the inner lining of envelopes.
Economical and sustainable
Several other potential challenges exist, in addition to the type of raw material and technology.
“Norway is a long country, and logistics can be a challenge. Agriculture is also very seasonal, so it isn’t necessarily easy to achieve year-round production of residual packaging.”
Another challenge is that there’s often not much time to extract the residual raw material.
When you remove a plant from the ground, for example, it degrades quickly.
Therefore, we have to look at how we can process the material before is spoils, the researchers say.
“But we definitely see a future for this re-purposing in Norway. It is becoming increasingly important to maximize value from what we have wherever possible. Today, a lot of agriwaste goes to incineration and soil improvement, but that is not the most valuable option. Packaging is an example of something that can potentially have great value – both economically and in terms of sustainability.
Here you will find a link to the Agriwaste project’s website.