AIMPLAS Achieves to develop biodegradable meshes and compostables for citrus fruit, onions and molluscs

The Technological Institute of the plastic (Aimplas) has developed successfully a new mesh to pack citrus fruit, potatoes, onions or molluscs that unlike the conventional is not necessary to separate of the organic rubbish for his recycled. The new mesh is biodegradable and compostable, by what has to be deposited with the rest of organic waste generated so much in the home as in the commercial surfaces.

This innovative container is the result of the investigations carried out by Aimplas in the frame of the project Ecobionet in collaboration with the Galician signature Ecoplas, the murciana Cristobal Meseguer, the German Tecnaro and the Belgian company OWS, and has had the financials of the Program Mark for the Competitiveness and the Innovation (CIP).

One of the most remarkable appearances of the biodegradable mesh is his cost, since in spite of presenting a value added so important like the biodegradabilidad and compostabilidad, the price of the final product only would increase in a cent by kilo of product packed. That is to say, that five kilos of potatoes packed in biodegradable mesh would cost five cents more than five kilos of potatoes packed in the traditional mesh, what keeps the on cost in a rank of prices asumible for the industry of the feeding.

The biodegradable mesh developed by Aimplas fulfils with all the functional requests to pack from potatoes, garlic and onions, until seafoods and molluscs, going through citrus and vegetables. So much it is like this, that can manufacture in all the present variants in the market: oriented (those that keep his original form with the product in his interior: for garlics and molluscs, for example), the no oriented (for citrus fruit, potatoes and a big variety of products hortofrutícolas) and the combined (designed to be able to see the product and that this transpire, but that avoid that the waste or dust fall out of the container).

But in addition to keeping all the properties of a conventional mesh, these new biodegradable containers are also compostables. This wants to say, that in conditions of compostabilidad industrial turn into credit for the plants, in an inferior time to six months, incorporating like this again to the cycle of the crop of the products that had contained.