Innovation: Biopolymer potato bags are ‘Tater Made’

Wada Farms采用部分从马铃薯淀粉部分制作的袋子，为其爱达荷淀粉用来减少温室气体排放，使用石油基塑料和多余的薄膜计。

Wada Farms, with the tagline, “The Grower That Changed the Game,” is a family-run farm that supplies potatoes, onions, and sweet potatoes to retail, foodservice, and wholesaler partners throughout the U.S. under its own name as well as for private label. One of the largest suppliers of potatoes in the country, Wada was founded in 1943 by Japanese immigrant Frank Wada on a few hundred acres and now occupies 30,000 acres in Idaho Falls, ID.

从一开始，弗兰克和他的妻子艾格尼丝均致力于成长为最佳，最营养的食物。这种激情激发了该公司目前的可持续发展哲学，它激励其农业和包装行动的各个部分。在其举措中，WADA通过明智地使用土地资源，水资源保护和管理，仔细的除草剂和农药应用以及丰富的作物旋转实践来雇用可持续的农业。

According to company President Kevin Stanger, Wada is always looking for opportunities to promote and provide better, more sustainable packaging for its products as well. In 2013, when resin producer BioLogiQ began marketing its NuPlastiQ® thermoplastic starch (TPS) biopolymer, Wada decided to work with the supplier to design a bag for its Idaho Potatoes that incorporates the material.

Today the potato starch-based “Tater Made” bag can be found in Walmart as well as in other retailers in Idaho and Colorado and provides the same, if not better, strength, printability, and appearance as Wada’s traditional petroleum-based polyethylene bags, with a 20% to 30% reduction in film.

TPS offers sustainability benefits

NuPlastiQ is part of the TPS category of biopolymers, which are derived from carbohydrates such as potatoes, tapioca, corn, maize, or rice, among others. Starch is a naturally-occurring biopolymer that, once plasticized, can be thermally processed and handled on traditional extrusion, injection-molding, blow-molding, or thermoforming equipment. TPS is then blended with polymers such as PE or polylactic acid to create a biodegradable alternative made partially or entirely from renewable resources that offers the same—or better—characteristics than 100% polymer blends.

据Biologiq Coo Dale Brockman表示，它区分其马铃薯淀粉基材料是Biologiq将高结晶淀粉粉转化为低结晶，大多是无定形的热塑性树脂。Nuplastiq以颗粒形式制成并含有少于1％的水分，因此易于与石油基塑料树脂混合。

Explains Brockman, when NuPlastiQ is mixed with conventional resins, the resulting Bioblend™, or “eco-alloy,” becomes a completely new molecule. “A good analogy is a real metal alloy,” he continues. “If you take copper and zinc and make brass, the strength of the brass is stronger than the copper and the zinc alone. In the same way, if you blend NuPlastiQ with petroleum-based resins, the properties change. Because NuPlastiQ has a higher modulus, or strength, than most polyolefins, Bioblends can be used to make plastic products that are stronger than those made with pure polyolefins.”

NuPlastiQ还提供了重要的可持续性dvantages. Among them, up to a 50% reduction in the use of fossil fuel feedstocks as well as a reduction of 1.62 kg of CO2 per every 1 kg of PE replaced. Adding up to 30% of the material can also allow for the downgauging of sealant webs and standalone webs. In its purest form, the material is compostable, where industrial compost facilities exist. In addition, products made by blending NuPlastiQ with other resins can be designed to biodegrade, or can be designed not to, even in the presence of microorganisms.

Brockman says BiologiQ has successfully blended its TPS resin with linear low-density PE, LDPE, high-density PE, polypropylene, polystyrene, polybutyrate, polyhydroxyalkanoate, PLA, ethyl vinyl alcohol, and other materials, including post-consumer recycled resins.

TPS bag for potatoes meets requirements
When BioLogiQ began developing a bag for Wada that would replace its existing 100% PE bag with one that combined NuPlastiQ with PE, there were several requirements. According to Dr. Don Allen, Vice President, R&D, for BioLogiQ, the bag had to:

·维持现有材料的落下冲击力强度，“用土豆装袋近似相同的影响，”并且必须在此过程中保持其强度。（落下飞镖撞击，也称为Gardner影响，是一种评估塑料材料的冲击强度或韧性的传统方法。）

·现有袋装机的过程。这需要足够的撕裂，所以袋子可以在完全时从检票口重量除去，但不是之前。

·通过合理的金额排放。

·能够用所需的图形和颜色打印。

The first iterations were “a work in progress,” says Stanger. “It took a little time for them to get it to work and do the mix correctly. The first bags that came out were cloudy-looking, not very clear.”

The first bags also featured greater strength—thus a thicker film gauge—than required. In addition, the tear strength was excessive at the original thickness, so downgauging was needed to allow the bags to process on existing equipment, Dr. Allen explains.

The final bag, dubbed the Tater Made bag, was introduced to retail in 2014. It is made from 20% to 25% NuPlastiQ and 75% to 80% PE. Says Dr. Allen, this percentage provides the best balance of economics and performance, including maximizing the downgauge capabilities. Various thicknesses—from 1.1 to 1.5 mils—are used, depending on the bag size. Wada uses the film for its five-, eight-, and 10-lb bags.

总共，薄膜的特性厚度降低20％至30％，通过其增加的强度使得温室气体排放量降低了44％，而典型的PE袋生产。最初，袋子由单层吹膜制成，但在2016和2017之间，从单层构造到共挤出的三层吹膜之间存在远离单层结构。可以使用任何传统的印刷过程印刷材料，而不会调整该过程。

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