Products
The range of materials which can be totally degradable is extremely wide and is constantly increasing as further development and testing takes place. In general terms, this includes:
- All flexible and semi rigid plastic products made from polyethylene and polypropylene
- Virgin, recycled or blends of these polymers
- Plastics extruded by blown or by cast methods and including BOPP (biaxially orientated polypropylene)
- Single, multi layered and laminated degradable materials
Further comment:
- Extremely thick or extremely thin materials may perform slightly differently and need to be evaluated case by case.
- Some successful testing has been undertaken to degrade PET. For the time being, however, further research is in hand before this is commercially available.
- Because of the unavoidable release of chlorine compounds into the environment if PVC films were to degrade, this is not being further explored as a priority.
- Degradable films for agricultural applications are invariably required to degrade within a very tight timeframe. Conversely, the uncontrollable elements which affect the rate of degradation are at their most uncertain in this application. For this reason the timing of degradation of agricultural films cannot be guaranteed.