Environmental considerations packaging materials

When the volume of the environmental fluid is finite, diffusion of a minor chemical species will proceed until equilibrium is attained. At equilibrium the diffusing species will partition itself between the polymer and environmental fluid phases defined by a partition coefficient K. The estimation of K is an importnat consideration in drug release from polymeric delivery devices (1 ) and in applications of polymers as food packaging materials (2 ). 

Due to the influence of environmental considerations, plastics recycling is a growing economic activity. The need to open up new channels for discarded packaging has stimulated the recycling of plastics to produce new packaging materials. Such technical processes are being developed for the most widely used polymers polyolefins, polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and PET. 

It is difficult to recycle the films obtained by coextrusion and lamination. However, the amount of packaging materials is considerably reduced in case of coextmded and laminated films, and thus the environmental impact is also reduced (Sandhya, 2010 Mangaraj et al., 2009). 

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