Ultimate, Innovia and Sun Chem develop new biodegradable film

The film, called Ultigreen, is designed to biodegrade in domestic and industrial compost bins and, according to the firm, is suitable to package all types of fresh foods, meats and non-food products.

The Grimsby-based company is using Sun Chemical hybrid biodegradable inks to reverse print Innovia’s NatureFlex film, which is then laminated using a biodegradable adhesive.

“Until now, only a small coverage of standard inks could be used to enable products to pass the EN13432 standard and to be rated as biodegradable,” said Derek Gibson, Ultimate Packaging’s technical manager.

“The new Sun Chemical hybrid inks allow total print coverage on food packs and the biodegradable adhesive applied to bond these two Innovia materials means that this product can be classed as being made totally from biodegradable components,” he said.

An Ultimate Packaging spokeswoman said the firm had had an “extremely good reaction” from buyers and was in talks with major supermarkets.

The news comes after research by European Bioplastics and the European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence (EPONE) found that bio-based materials were becoming increasingly popular.

Up to 90% of the current global consumption of polymers could technically be converted from oil and gas to renewable materials, according to the study.

It also said that production capacity of bioplastics is set to rise from 360,000 tonnes in 2007 to about 2.3m by 2013.

“The role that lightweight conventional plastics played in the past, substituting durable materials like iron and steel in vast products, could soon be taken over by bio-based plastics,” said Hasso von Pogrell, managing director of European Bioplastics.

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