Mike

Strangely enough, your polywhatsit chips and foams, at least the polystyrene varieties,
are considered to be very environmentally friendly. Reasons: they are now blown with
environmentally-friendly gases, such as CO2 and H2O (this was not the case 10 years
ago); they are very light and voluminous and thus reduce transport emissions for a
given volume from the factory to the place of use and from the place of use to the
final destination; they are reusable over many cycles (it is estimated that 70% of
industrial enterprises in Continental Europe collect incoming packing materials and
re-use them); the polystyrene chips burn cleanly, producing only CO2 and H2O
(polyurethane is less so in this respect, as it decomposes into some quite nasty
components, such as toluene diisocyanate); they contain no halogens nor are halogens
required to produce them; they are chemically inert; they are not degraded if wetted;
they are not polluting in landfills; they can even be used (chopped) for improving
heavy clay soils, allowing better aeration; they can even be recycled without further
treatment as polystyrene is a thermoplastic and probably etc.

Brian

Mike Fenner wrote:

> Hate to use the term environmentally friendly, but am looking for non
> "plastic" packaging which would be just that. Products are substrates
> to go into clean room or near clean room applications. Most of the
> stuff we have identified so far to replace the polywhatsit chips and
> foams is thought by us to be likely to particulate excessively. If
> anybody has any suggestions that would help shorten our search I would
> appreciate hearing from them.
>
> Mike
>
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