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April 2008 |
 Albany Bakeries, a Tiger Brands subsidiary, has become the first SA bread maker to pack its loaves in biodegradable packaging.
/~Albany is the first bakery in SA to do this. In the past all plastic bread bags in SA have been non-degradable.
Megan Draddy, packaging development manager for Tiger Brands cereals and milled products, says that the company has been working on this project for three years. It examined a number of options, including the possibility of making the bags out of PLA (polylactic acid). PLA, made from maize - but not yet made in SA - would have been far too expensive, she says.
There are now a number of additives to conventional polymers which impart biodegradability, however. Suppliers of these additives included Ciba-Geiger and DuPont, but Albany chose Symphony as its supplier/development partner.
Symphony, which is based in London, has, says Draddy, every certification possible. It is represented by George Fee in SA.
The additive, called d2w (degrade-to-water), is added in at the co-extruder stage. The same polymers are used as previously for the Albany bags - namely, LDPE and LLDPE with metacines.
Draddy says that long and extensive trials were conducted into the properties of the various films required because Albany has 21 bread SKUs (stock keeping units) and 13 bakeries.
Each bakery produces and packs about one million loaves of bread per week. This entails a huge amount of packaging.
The additive treatment of the polymers had to be changed according to the different SKUs because of varying stock levels of different SKUs and durations for which the stocks of packaging typically stand.
The new packaging is degradable over a two-year period in the worst conditions - that is, with almost no oxygen or sunlight.
All that remains after degradation are fragments of ink.
If conditions are better - for instance there are UV rays - the bags degrade sooner. "A bread bag lying on a beach, for instance, would disappear completely after the period of degradation," says Draddy.
Draddy says that the additive cost is less than 1c/bag and ''will be absorbed by Albany rather than consumers''.
In SA, d2w is also used in Astrapak's biodegradable dustbin bags, for instance.
In Britain, d2w is now used in many products, including, for instance, Tesco bags for frozen vegetables, which must handle extremely low temperatures. Some bread brands in Britain have biodegradable packaging, but some do not.
The Albany bags average about 30 micron thick, varying slightly according to the co-extruder.
Draddy says that companies should consider using such additives for biodegradability where there is no real possibility that their packaging will be recycled. For instance, collectors will not bother to collect bread bags, so they should be biodegradable, she believes.
Symphony offers the additive in various blends and forms for both plastic films and semi-rigid plastics. - Teigue Payne
Draddy: Tel 082-561-9961.
Fee: Tel 031-561-3090.
Draddy: Tel 082-561-9961.
Fee: Tel 031-561-3090.{/mosregread}
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