AGRICULTURAL FILM | MATERIALS
Growing pains: using plastics in agricultural film
Agriculture relies heavily on plastic films – from mulching to crop protection – but the need to boost sustainability means users and producers must look at ways to reduce problems such as pollution Main image:
Sustainability in agriculture has become increasingly important – and this extends to its use of plastics in products such as greenhouse film and mulch film. While they help to boost output, they can cause pollution if they partially decompose and get into the soil. Delegates at the recent Agricultural Film
conference in Barcelona – organised by AMI – heard how developers have come up with new biodegradable film formulations that can also help to improve soil properties. Chelo Escrig Rondán, agriculture and aquatic
environment group leader at Spanish research organisation Aimplas, explained how active substances – such as fertiliser – can be incorporated into biodegradable plastic film, for applications such as mulching. The active substance can be adsorbed by
porous materials such as hydrophilic silica, which is then incorporated into a plastic matrix such as an
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extruded film. One example is to add an anti-fungal additive to mulch film, at a loading of around 0.3%. Aimplas tested it against typical fungi, in comparison with standard biopolymer film. At 24°C, a standard film saw 50% infection with both Botrytis cinerea and Aspergillus niger after seven days. In each case, the anti-fungal film reduced this to zero. At 8°C, Botrytis cinerea managed to infect the standard film completely – but this was reduced to 67% on the anti-fungal film.
“Mulching with anti-fungal film can be used for
watermelon crops, as a measure to combat fungal growth during all stages of cultivation,” he said. Compost containing 10% of the biofilm also
broke down completely over three months, with no toxic effects, he added.
Faster composting Hugo Vuurens, VP of business development at CJ Biomaterials, told delegates that the company’s
April 2023 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 13
Mulch film is critical to the production of many crops
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
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