Page 28 - PWM2025_DECEMBER EBOOK

TECHNOLOGY REPORT

UK innovators help crack the

plastics problem

T about 40 people and has its own manufactur-ing facility

heir durability and versatility have made them
near Birmingham.
indispensable, but also hard to re-cycle
through commercially viable processes. Even
Aquapak’s material, Hydropol, is a proprietary formu-
A British manufac- nominally ‘recyclable’ materials often can’t lation of poly-vinyl alcohol (PVOH), a synthetic poly-
turer has taken a leap practically be collected, while early “biode- mer used in applications from textile finishing to
gradables” turned out to leave long-lived harm-
dishwasher tablets. Aqua-pak developed a food-safe ver-
forward in slashing ful microparticles in the environment. sion that forms a high-performance barrier to oxygen,
the requirement for A British innovation is now offering an alternative grease and oils, while also being 100% soluble in water.
non-biodegradable that’s not only functional as flexible pack-aging, but also Most importantly, it leaves no harmful mi-croplastics or
plastics in packaging verifiably biodegradable with no lingering nasties. toxic residues in the environment, as it breaks down
Hydropol is a water-soluble, fully biodegradable poly-
into CO2, water and “non-toxic biomass”.
products and is look- mer developed by Aquapak Polymers in Birmingham. Aquapak has a capacity for up to 30,000 tonnes per
ing to scale up. For EvoPak, a British subsidiary of the Ukraine-based year and is exploring options for expan-sion. “We might
decades, the packag- Evotek packaging giant, uses it to create a paper-based build more factories, or license the material elsewhere,”
packaging material it calls RCM (standing for
ing industry has “Recyclable, Compostable, Ma-rine-safe”). says Lapping. “It’s not been easy for us to develop, so it
can’t easily be replicated by someone else. But we can
wrestled with the It’s already used on packs you can buy in the shops, scale up easily if investors come in.”
environmental with some upmarket confectionery, crisp, nut and pop- The company has also created a plant-derived Bio
downsides of plastics. corn products. Last year the British Crisp Co enjoyed Hydropol. The original uses fossil fuel stocks, though
quite a lot of na-tional publicity when it adopted RCM as Aquapak stresses that it biodegrades completely. It’s
the world’s first fully recyclable paper crisp pack. working to scale this up to production. Aquapak manu-
Words by EvoPak is poised to announce some major brand adop- factures Hydropol as resin pellets in seven grades for dif-
Simon Eccles ters later this year, it says. Aquapak was set up about ferent applications, and supplies these to extruders or
nine years ago as a commercial spin-off from academic converters, which process them into films or coat paper
research, says CEO Mark Lapping. It currently employs and board substrates. “Hydropol is thermo-processa-

26 PrintWeek MENA December 2025 www.printweekmena.com