What Are the Main Components of Disposable Degradable Lunch Boxes? What Materials Are Most Degradable Lunch Boxes Made Of?

With the current global requirements for banning and restricting plastics, plastic-free or degradable solutions have become an inevitable trend for the future. Ordinary plastics are still disposed of by incineration, which releases large amounts of greenhouse gases into the air, while disposable degradable lunch boxes are buried in the soil to degrade; the carbon dioxide produced enters the soil organic matter directly or is absorbed by plants, and is not released into the air, so it does not cause a greenhouse effect.

Today let us take stock of the disposable degradable lunch boxes available on the market.

1. Pulp molded lunch boxes (plant fiber molded tableware)

Pulp molded tableware products have certain advantages on the path to banning plastics. First of all, in terms of raw materials, pulp molded disposable lunch boxes use plant fibers such as wheat straw and bagasse as raw materials, without adding any PP material, and are formed through the pulp molding wet-press process; food-grade additives such as water- and oil-repellent agents are added to the pulp to achieve the effect of holding hot and cold food.

Plant fiber degradable lunch boxes are the most active type of lunch box on the market at present. Take Hainan Province, which fully bans plastics, as an example: Hainan has comprehensively prohibited the use, circulation, sale and storage of plastic tableware. Pulp molded tableware has undoubtedly become an ideal substitute for plastics.

Sugarcane pulp disposable lunch boxes belong to the fully degradable type of lunch box, and can completely degrade into organic matter within 90 days under industrial composting or home composting conditions, returning to nature.

1. Corn starch-based lunch boxes

Corn starch degradable lunch boxes are processed from natural corn starch and plant fiber as base materials, supplemented with substances such as biopolyester and polyols.

Corn starch lunch boxes can degrade naturally in soil and in the natural environment, with a degradation rate of 60%-80% depending on the composition of the lunch box. To a certain extent, they can replace plastic products and reduce white pollution to the environment. They are an ideal substitute for the widely used yet much-debated "disinfected tableware" on the catering market.

1. PLA degradable tableware

PLA degradable lunch boxes usually refer to products combining PLA composite film with pulp molded products in the pulp molding process, that is, PLA film-laminated products.

PLA composite film is a fully degradable film produced and processed from polylactic acid as a raw material, which can be heat-laminated onto pulp molded and paper products.

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a new type of biodegradable material, made from starch raw materials extracted from renewable plant resources (such as corn). The starch raw material is saccharified to obtain glucose, and the glucose is then fermented with certain strains to produce high-purity lactic acid, which is then synthesized into polylactic acid of a certain molecular weight through chemical synthesis methods. It has good biodegradability and can be completely degraded by microorganisms in nature after use, ultimately producing carbon dioxide and water without polluting the environment. This is very beneficial for environmental protection, and it is recognized as an environmentally friendly material.

In view of the advantages of PLA, after being combined with pulp molded products through the film lamination process, it can not only save the use of water- and oil-repellent agents, but also better seal the pores of pulp molded products, so that products that previously could not resist water can now prevent water leakage. At the same time, after the pores are sealed, the breathability of the tableware during actual use is reduced, the insulation performance is higher and the heat-retention time is longer.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-378937.html