More and more, I’ve been seeing “natural” plastics popping up. Have you seen the new fully-compostable bag that Frito-Lay(R) is using for Sun Chips(R)? It’s really noisy but they claim that it will break down in just 14 weeks in the environment. They’re doing this because Whole Foods, Wal-Mart and others are insisting that more packaging be made of “biodegradable” materials. Green is the megatrend of this decade.
Natural plastics have been used in plastic tubing for awhile. The most popular is Nylon 11. NewAge Industries, Ark-Plas, AP Extrusion and my employer – Freelin-Wade, all make tubing with the material. The base of this polymer is castor oil.
Castor oil is a vegetable oil that comes from castor beans. They grow in subtropical regions of Brazil and India.The plastic is made by polymerizing a split segment of castor bean oil. The polymer chain doesn’t biodegrade any faster or more completely, but the advantage is that the resource is renewable.
So far, Nylon 11 is the only biopolymer that you could call commercially successful. That seems destined to change however. With the growth of natural plastics made from corn, soy and even straw, we can expect more natural plastics to come into the market. How they will work as tubing is anyone’s guess. Like with all plastics, it will come down to the application. Certainly a tube conveying water probably can’t also be biodegradable.
Watch my blog for future updates. I know that the tubing industry would love to find more green alternatives… and I’m sure the market would like it as well.
