Kotkamills joins the KooKoo team

Kotkamills and a Finnish ice hockey club KooKoo partner up – together towards plastic-free game events.

KooKoo wants to build a first in the world plastic-free ice hockey game event together with its new partner Kotkamills Oy.

– Our shared ambitious goal is to reduce the plastic waste of our home games to as close to zero as possible, declares the CEO of KooKoo Hockey Oy, Sakari Välimaa.

Kotkamills’ plastic-free AEGLE® and ISLA® barrier boards enable the reduction. Kotkamills’ barrier boards are unique, fully plastic-free, easily recyclable and biodegradable paperboards that can be used, for instance, in making of many kinds of food service packaging with good water and grease resistance.

– Plastic waste is persistently growing problem globally and we want to do our best to restrain it, says Markku Hämäläinen, the CEO of Kotkamills.

– Majority of the consumers falsely thinks that the single use paperboard food service containers, such as coffee cups, are plastic-free and ecological option. As a matter of fact, the cups are traditionally coated with plastic.

In the first phase all the coffee cups used at the KooKoo home arena Lumon Areena are changed to the cups made of Kotkamills’ board. The food stalls will also start serving food from the trays made of the board.

Kotka based Cukca makes the cups and Kouvola based PackageMedia makes the trays.

– Plastic spoons will also be replaced by wooden stirring sticks, Välimaa tells.

The Finnish ice hockey elite league, Liiga, has been increasincly environmatelly cautious, especially since last season, when they launched the Liiga Environmental Program.

– Liiga and it’s teams have the opportunity and the responsibility to promote sustainable development. KooKoo’s and Kotkamills’ cooperation is a good example of what we can do, says Liiga’s CEO Riku Kallioniemi.

www.kotkamills.com

KooKoo is a professional ice hockey organization from Kouvola, Finland. KooKoo plays in one of the best leagues in the world, the Finnish Elite League, which is called Liiga. KooKoo’s home games attract over 100 000 spectators each season. Finland is the reigning world champion of ice hockey