Museum of Modern Art: Revolutionary Packaging

Shoppers at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) stores may have noticed something different on their latest visit. The packaging in all MoMA’s retail shops is now green. We’re not just talking simple green here either. Their gift packaging including boxes and all bags is now made from a revolutionary sustainable material called TerraSkin™ made by Design & Source Productions in New York.


TerraSkin™ is made from a combination of large amounts of mineral powder (>75%) with a small quantity (<25%) of non-toxic resin to create an environmentally friendly paper. TerraSkin(TM) has very similar characteristics to traditional paper with a tensile and tearing strength ratio of 1:1 - 2:1. It also has many eco-friendly characteristics. First, the production of TerraSkin(TM) requires no water, so the TerraSkin(TM) paper making process incurs no water pollutants. Second, as TerraSkin(TM) contains high proportions of inorganic mineral powder, when the end user is done with the TerraSkin(TM) product, the used paper will degrade when left out in nature for approximately three to nine months back into the mineral powder. If preferred, used papers can also be incinerated safely as non-toxic resins will not emit smoke or poisonous gas by-products. TerraSkin(TM) can also be easily and cost-effectively recycled in the future. Furthermore, on the production front, residues of inorganic mineral powder can be either reused or safely returned to nature. Most importantly, in producing TerraSkin(TM) , there are no trees involved. The paper is completely treeless.