Loose-fill packaging

One of the main obstacles to widespread use of biodegradable polymers has been the high cost of these polymers. For this reason, industrial applications tend to be specialist applications with unique environmental considerations. Loose-fill packaging and compost bags are the two major end uses constituting nearly 90% of demand. Several other applications offer strong market potential for the future, primarily in Europe. 

---

Foil bags for the collection of biological waste and biodegradable loose-fill packaging materials are already in use. 

One of the first applications of biodegradable materials is based on the cooked, extruded, and expanded starch known from the food and chemical sectors (Fig. 14.23). Starch is cooked with water in the extruder and chemically modified as necessary or mixed with plasticizers, then expanded to a starch foam and dried. The extrudate is ground so that the functional properties thus created can be used in the food/chemicals sector. The foamed, cut, and dried extrudate is the end product for loose-fill packaging applications. The degree of expansion is a measure of the foam texture. It increases strongly with product temperature at the die, helped by a higher specific mechanical energy input. However, both measures increase the water-solubility of the product. 

Excluding loose-fill packaging, which is a relatively more mature sector for starch-based biodegradable polymers, global market tonnage in 2005 is 71,700 tonnes and the compound annual growth rate for the period 2005-2010 is projected to be 20.3%. 

Packaging is the largest application area for bioplastics in North America with 41 % of total volumes in 2005. Other significant markets are loose-fill packaging foam and bags and sacks. 

Packaging is the largest market for biodegradable polymers in Asia Pacific with 44% of market volume in 2005. Bags and sacks is the second largest market with 21% followed by loose-fill packaging with 15%. 

As a relatively mature market for starch-based biopolymers, loose-fill packaging volumes are forecast to grow by 8.6% per annum in Western Europe, 6.8% per annum in North America and by 5.6% per annum in Asia Pacific. 

For loose fill packaging, Wave by Mater-Bi is recommended for packaging pharmaceutical products, laboratory equipment, consumer goods, and mail order goods. 

Loose-fill packaging was one of the first successful areas of application for starch-based biodegradable polymers. Loose-fill starch-based foam is used for packaging consumer products as an alternative to polystyrene and polyethylene. While, biodegradable plastics have made some inroads into these markets, the future prospects for their growth in loose-fill are not so exciting as they are in some other areas of packaging. 

The Dow Chemical Company first entered the loose-fill packaging market in 1962 with a material that resembled spaghetti strands. Eventually the shape evolved to the S shape that characterized the product from the early 1970s to the present. Other competitors in the polystyrene foam loose-fill market include Flo-Pak, manufactured by Free-Flow Packaging, Inter-Pac, manufactured by Inter-Pac, WingPac and C-Pac, manufactured by Rapac, and Alta-Pak, manufactured by Storopack. In 1993, Dow sold the trademark rights to the S shape and Pelaspan-Pac to Storopack. The information about foamed polystyrene loose-fill that follows is an overview specific to materials that are formed in hard resin strands, cut to length, boxed and shipped to and later expanded for customer use at a convertor (expander) location. 

Polystyrene loose-fill packaging material used in US Federal Government applications must meet US Government Specification PPP-C-1683 (12/5/ 1988), Cushioning Material, Expanded Polystyrene Loose-Fill Bulk (for Packaging Application) . Compliance with eight properties is the basis for this... 

Other styrenic polymer foams were developed in the mid-1950s through the early 1960s. Examples are molded expanded polystyrene foam (MEPS), extruded polystyrene foam sheet, and expanded polystyrene loose-fill packaging material. 

Polystyrene. While polystyrene was probably first formed by German apothecary Eduard Simon in 1839, it was almost 100 years later, in 1930, that the German chemical company I. G. Fraben placed polystyrene on the market. Polystyrene-molded parts became common place by 1935. Apphcations of polyst5Tene include loose-fill packaging peanuts, shape-molded packaging, and disposable utensils. 

---