It is reported that the United Kingdom will launch a new biodegradable plastic packaging next month.It is reported that the plastic packaging can achieve 100% degradation, was designed to be discarded like orange peel.
The United States has long started to use 100% biodegradable products and has assigned its supplier TIPA to announce some UK brand partnerships in the coming months.
Advanced bio-plastic materials
Daphna Nissenbaum, Software Engineer and CEO, and TalNeuman, Senior Vice President, Industrial Designer and Product Division, founded TIPA in Israel, which currently has a large research and development team, a bioplastics manufacturing team, sales and marketing department, and a U.S. subsidiary Sales office.
Products include co-extruded high transparent films for fresh food, coffee, bakery products, cereal crushed products and clear or non-transparent sealed plastic bags and stand-up bags for granola bars, chips, snacks, cereals, These products have long been sold in the EU and the United States.
Nissenbaum told BakeryandSnacks that TIPA's vision is to have soft plastic packaging have the same end-of-life attributes as organic waste and still have the same long-term attributes as consumers and brands expect for products including freshly produced, chilled and frozen foods and dairy products Ordinary plastic-like durability and shelf life.
'Flexible packaging is not made of pure plastic polymer, but made by mixing several materials, making it almost impossible to recycle,' she said.
'Even though some of the materials used for flexible packaging are biodegradable, the very blends of materials make the entire package unsuitable for recycling or composting.'
'The vision behind TIPA is to address the challenge of creating sustainable flexible packaging by creating advanced bioplastic materials, and to do that, our company includes chemical and bioplastics professionals, industry experts and food engineers.'
'We started a new era of packaging and wrapped our food in a natural way.'
Nissenbaum added that although bioplastic materials have been around for a long time, they can only be used in agriculture, garbage bags or simple applications because they can not be successfully put into existing production lines.
'The task is complicated and full of difficulties.'
She said that these materials tend to be more easily broken, more sensitive to heat and humidity, and have poor permeability, yellow color and lack of transparency.
"The task of developing a biodegradable packaging from scratch is complex and difficult, not just regulatory but also lacking existing technology and logistics and business development," said Nissenbaum.
TIPA built its technology on three steps
Resin Series - Using existing raw materials in a new way, modifying and controlling their properties and compounding them into resin blends to become new materials with advanced properties.
Film Series - The second step is to define a unique structure of coextruded film (based on a new formulation) to create films with similar mechanical, optical and barrier properties as traditional plastics such as polypropylene, polyethylene, etc. It has developed several types Film for standalone applications in food packaging processes, barrier, sealant and printable films.
Laminate Series - The third step is to design high-quality laminates such as those used today in the industry. High barrier transparent or coated sheets that can be printed and applied in existing machinery produce a range of handbags, zipper bags, The final packaging material can replace the traditional traditional laminate used for dry and greasy food, fresh fruits and vegetables, cold bread, snacks and so on.
'Spent a lot of development time, but today TIPA has developed the first fully compostable eco-friendly barrier film and laminate with the necessary moisture and oxygen barrier properties to meet a range of food shelf life standards. '
'This breakthrough made it possible to replace non-recyclable flexible packaging with organic recyclable / compostable packaging. TIPA's packaging can be transferred not only from landfills and incineration centers but also as an added value as a source of energy for production (Such as biogas facilities) or land fertilizers (composting facilities). '
When co-founder Nissenbaum and Neuman began working together six years ago, they wanted to design a biodegradable water bag (TIPA means 'water drop' in Hebrew.) They hired bioplastic experts to find suitable beverages Bags of material, but six months later, they were told there was no suitable biodegradable material on the market.
Same properties as traditional plastic
They believe that if TIPA's biodegradable flexible packaging is to succeed, it must have all the properties of traditional plastics in terms of transparency, tensile strength and shelf life, and it must also be completely compostable.
The basic idea is actually an orange peel, a wrapper that will resemble an orange peel, a biodegradable wrapper that we can throw into the organic trash can after we have eaten or finished its contents, "Newman said .
'We created flexible food packaging that, on the one hand, looks and feels like ordinary plastic with the same properties and on the other hand it biodegrades post-consumer to fertilizer and can be used again for soil fertilization.'
'The implementation of complex, high-quality mechanical standards in the food industry makes it difficult to come up with a compostable and effective package that supports both ecological and functional requirements, which is the technical challenge we solve.'
Nissenbaum at a seminar in VivaTechnology in Paris on the issue of 'technology to solve the problem of flexible packaging waste' speech, I believe the next few years, the EU will specify more stringent environmental laws pushing for further application of degradable packaging far-reaching impact on the food packaging industry influences.