The Proportion of Biodegradable Doesn‘t Have a Standard; It All Depends on How the Government Regulates It

During a roundtable that kicked off a pre-K press event, Messe Düsseldorf's Executive Director Petra Cullmann set the tone for the machinery news to come, saying the main themes for K 2022 (Oct. 19-26) will be digitization, climate protection, and the circular economy. In fact, these three themes are also the direction governments and enterprises worldwide are currently working towards.

 

Climate change is becoming more and more serious that it cannot be put off anymore. The EU first proposed the EU Plastic Bags Directive (EU2015/720) in 2015, and then proposed the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive in 2019.

These bills target plastic reduction for the most widely used plastic bags, which also affects the development trend of global enterprises. Biodegradable materials have become a famous topic, especially in blown film equipment. However, in the beginning, there was no standard for the proportion of biodegradable materials, from 5%, 30%, and 50%, even when Indonesia proposed to use 100% tapioca flour for film blowing, it caused great concern for many manufacturers. Nevertheless, Taiwan's film-blowing machine manufacturers have greatly improved the film-blowing technology for processing biodegradable materials in recent years. At K 2022, many film-blowing machine manufacturers in Taiwan covered almost this topic in the exhibition.

 

Kung Hsing Successfully Developed a Biodegradable Film Blowing Machine 20 years ago

Kung Hsing located in Southern Taiwan is a representative film blowing machine equipment manufacturer. It has accumulated nearly 50 years experience in design and manufacturing for extruders and blown film machines and has been widely praised by international customers.
 

"Biodegradable materials in film blowing machines are not a new concept. As early as 20 years ago, Kung Hsing helped customers to successfully develop and manufacture them already," said Stephanie, special assistant to the chairman of Kung Hsing. "The current development is towards PVA water soluble film, which is newer biodegradable material."

 

Kung Hsing's three-layer, five-layer, and seven-layer film blowing machines can be independently designed and manufactured. In order to meet the diverse needs of customers, Kung Hsing's R&D and design team always communicate closely with customers, so that they can walk ahead of them and fulfill the rapid market. Besides biodegradable materials, Kung Hsing has launched the latest automatic high-efficiency rewinder with a three-in-one function. Operators can choose different modes according to their needs to adapt to different instructions. Stephanie said: "The film blowing machine must be stable when it pursues productivity and speed. Only stable production leads to stable quality. This is the challenge to all blown film machine equipment."

 

Jandi's Put the Best Five-in-one Machinery into the Application of Biodegradable Materials
 

Different from normal film blowing machine equipment manufacturers, Jandi's has more mastery of printing, bag making, recycling and packaging, and has integrated five machines including film blowing, printing, bag making machine, recycling and packaging machine. They combine together and are called "JANDI'S JIT Integrated Recycled Bag Manufacturing Equipment".
 

This type of design can greatly reduce the production workspace, energy consumption, and labor. This has been Jandi’s most popular model for many years. Especially in recent years, after Jandi’s put this machine into the application of biodegradable materials, it has been praised by customers.

"We all know that plastic bags are the largest product. If we can use biodegradable plastic bags to replace the current plastic bags, we can at least reduce the usage of plastics in the world. We believe that continuing to build a good landfill and compostable system. Biodegradable materials will be a good solution.” Jerry, general manager of Jandi’s said with confidence.

Kang Chyau has Rich Experience in the Application of Biodegradable Materials, and Increasing the Output of Film Blowing Machines

Since its establishment in 1988, Kang Chyau has focused on the design, manufacture, and marketing of film blowing machines. It has extensive experience in the properties of various raw materials for film blowing, especially the application of biodegradable materials. In the past three years, big progress has been made in biodegradable materials. PBAT, which is refined from petroleum-based materials, has gradually attracted attention. In terms of the softness of biodegradable materials, a large number of additives need to be added to meet the demand. However, now the regulations of various countries have restrictions on the addition of additives. Therefore, the manufacturer can only be adjusted by the characteristics of raw materials, which is the challenge that film blowing machines face when dealing with biodegradable materials.

 

"Like the plastic wrap equipment, we cooperate with Nan Ya Plastics, the customer requires that the tackifier should not exceed 10%, and we can only rely on us to small adjustments to the characteristics of the raw materials, and the design of the extruder, screw and barrel must be adjusted precisely," said Gina, Kang Chyau's business manager. "In the past three years, the demand for film blowing of biodegradable materials has greatly increased, which has also led to the improvement of technology. One of our customers in California has been mass-producing PLA products for more than 10 years. Now we have been able to upgrade to a large 1000mm film blowing machine, and customers are very happy that their productivity has doubled due to the improvement of technology.”
 

There are more excellent film blowing machine manufacturers in Taiwan, and some of them can meet buyers at the K 2022 exhibition. Although some of them will not come to the exhibition, you can still explore them more deeply through the PRM-TAIWAN.com Plastics and Rubber International Marketing Platform. If you are also there, welcome to our booth and have a nice conversation!

 

PRM-TAIWAN Booth F04-02 / Hall 12