LVF plans to breakdown plastic waste with with biodegradable PET
Leeds-based LVF (Leeds Vacuum Formers) has become one of the first packaging companies in the UK to manufacture and sell products made from BreakdownPET – a biodegradable and fully recyclable plastic material that is designed to quickly, naturally and safely decompose in landfill.
LVF added BreakdownPET to its offering late last year, and already Podpak Ltd – a single-serve specialist from Bath – has made the switch to it.
Nigel Coates, managing director of LVF, said: “We recycle close to 100 per cent of all waste we produce, and have done for as long as I remember; and prior to the introduction of Breakdown PET, we used rPET, which is fully recyclable and contains a minimum of 80 per cent post-consumer waste.”
The decision to investigate and then introduce an alternative to rPET grew from LVFs concerns about the amount of plastic products that still end up in landfill.
“BreakdownPET is the future of plastic packaging material. It biodegrades in landfill, and is currently undergoing tests that look certain to prove it is compostable in non-commercial facilities.”
Designed specifically for the thermoformed packaging industry, BreakdownPET has all of the properties of conventional rPET, but also provides an end-of-life solution for the billions of plastic containers that find their way to landfill sites every year rather than being recycled for re-use. It features organic additives that accelerate the biodegradation of treated plastics in microbe-rich environments, allowing it to biodegrade like organic matter. Breakdown PET products also have an unlimited shelf-life and are completely non-toxic.
