Kevin Thomas works for Davpack, a uk packaging supplier. Their friendly staff are waiting to help you choose the right packaging for your business. Text and content ? Copyright of Davenport Paper Co. Ltd 2009
Sales Article: Mailing Bags
Mailing Bags are an excellent low cost way to ship goods that already have good quality packaging or don’t require postal protection like clothes.
plastic bags usually use less material than cardboard boxes, cartons, or jars and are therefore often considered as reduced or minimized packaging. Depending on the construction, plastic bags can be well suited for plastic recycling and can be incinerated in appropriate facilities for waste-to-energy conversion.
Bags can be made with a variety of plastic films. Polyethylene, of various grades and types,is the most common. Other forms, including laminates and coextrusions can be used when the physical properties are needed.
Plastic recycling improves usage of resources. Biodegradable films need to be kept away from the usual recycling stream to prevent contaminating the polymers to be recycled. If disposed of in a sanitary landfill, most traditional plastics do not readily decompose. The sterile conditions of a sealed landfill also deter degradation of “biodegradable” polymers.
Polyethylene is a polymer consisting of long chains of the monomer ethylene (IUPAC name ethene). The recommended scientific name polyethene is systematically derived from the scientific name of the monomer. In certain circumstances it is useful to use a structure？based nomenclature. In such cases IUPAC recommends poly(methylene). The difference is due to the opening up of the monomer’s double bond upon polymerisation. In the polymer industry the name is sometimes shortened to PE in a manner similar to that by which other polymers like polypropylene and polystyrene are shortened to PP and PS respectively. In the United Kingdom the polymer is commonly called polythene, although this is not recognised scientifically.
Biodegradable postal bags are also available now like the Degradamailer,a biothene degradable postal bag. These films are made by blending an additive to provide a UV / oxidative and/or biological mechanism to degrade them. This typically takes 6 months to 2 years in a landfill site if adequate exposure to oxygen and heat over 140°F/60°C.
Degradation is a two stage process. First the plastic is converted by reaction with oxygen (light, heat and/or stress) to molecular fragments that water can wet, and then these smaller oxidized molecules are biodegraded, i.e. converted into carbon dioxide,water and biomass by microorganisms.
