Telles Customer Cortec Corporation to Launch Biobased Film Products for Marine and Anaerobic Digestion Markets

Telles’ New Mirel P5001 Film Grade Resin Achieves Performance for Markets Requiring Anaerobic Digestion; Cortec to Deliver First Mirel P5001 Commercial Film Products.

Telles, a joint venture of Metabolix, Inc. (NASDAQ: MBLX) and Archer Daniels Midland Company, today announced that Cortec® Corporation, a leading film producer located in St. Paul, Minnesota, has selected Mirel™ bioplastic for a new line of film products. Through a mutual development and commercialization effort, the two companies have developed proprietary processing and extrusion methods resulting in the first commercially viable finished flexible film products made from the new biobased Mirel P5001 film grade resin.

“Our combined effort with the Telles technical team to develop a unique method of extrusion-blown film products has resulted in a process innovation,” explained Boris Miksic, president and CEO with Cortec. “The combination of Mirel film resin with the new extrusion and processing method delivers practical and diverse benefits for end-users, including multiple end-of-life options.”

Cortec is launching two new products based on Mirel P5001—EcoOcean™ and Eco Works® AD. EcoOcean is for marine biodegradable markets and Eco Works AD is designed to meet the demands of anaerobic digestion systems, offering various disposal options for bioplastic products. Cortec’s biodegradable films are available in more than 70 countries worldwide.
EcoOcean and Eco Works AD will be available through these sales channels upon launch.

“EcoOcean will revolutionize the use of flexible packaging, especially in coastal areas of the world,” said Miksic. “Eco Works AD is the result of more than 13 years of development work and finally achieves the high renewable content that was previously unattainable in a flexible film that has a range of disposal options after use. Mirel P5001 is a remarkable bioplastic material.”

Mirel P5001 was tested to ASTM D7081 standard specification for biodegradation in marine environments by the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) in Natick, Massachusetts, which concluded that Mirel P5001 is fully marine biodegradable. Organics Waste Systems (OWS), Belgium, tested P5001 per ASTM D5511 standard test method for anaerobic biodegradation and found that it achieved 100 percent biodegradation in 15 days. Mirel P5001 is also BPI certified to ASTM D6400 and Vinçotte certified to EN 13432 standards for compostable plastics, Vinçotte certified for OK Soil Biodegradable in natural soil and OK Water Biodegradable in fresh water.

About Cortec Corporation
Cortec® Corporation is the world leader in innovative corrosion protection solutions for packaging, metalworking, construction, electronics, water treatment, oil & gas, and other industries. Cortec was the first North American extruder of bioplastics to attain BPI certification for D6400 compostable plastics and to offer a full commercial line of bioplastic innovations including flexible film versions of PLA (Eco Works), cryogenic packaging (Eco Film®), drawtape bag (Eco Works), stretch, masking, and cling film (EcoWrap®), anti-static films (EcoCorr® ESD), corrosion inhibiting (EcoCorr, EcoCorr ESD), shrink with clarity (Eco Works 70 Shrink), and jointly developed offshore drilling films. Cortec manufactures over 450 products distributed worldwide with five plants in the U.S., one in Europe, and sales channel partners in over 70 countries. ISO 9001 & ISO 14001:2004 Certified. www.cortecvci.com

About Mirel Bioplastics
Mirel is a family of bioplastic materials that have physical properties comparable to petroleum-based resins, yet are biobased and biodegradable in natural soil and water environments, in home composting systems, and in industrial composting facilities where such facilities are available. The rate and extent of Mirel’s biodegradability will depend on the size and shape of the articles made from it. However, like nearly all bioplastics and organic matter, Mirel is not designed to biodegrade in conventional landfills.

Commercial grades of Mirel are available for injection molding, thermoforming, sheet extrusion, and film applications. For more information please visit www.mirel.com.

About Metabolix
Founded in 1992, Metabolix, Inc. is an innovation-driven bioscience company focused on providing sustainable solutions for the world’s needs for plastics, chemicals and energy. The

Company is taking a systems approach, from gene to end product, integrating sophisticated biotechnology with advanced industrial practice. Metabolix is now developing and commercializing Mirel™, a family of high performance bioplastics which are biobased and biodegradable alternatives to many petroleum-based plastics, through Telles, a joint venture of Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland Company. Metabolix is also developing biosourced industrial chemicals and a proprietary platform technology for co-producing plastics, chemicals and energy, from crops such as switchgrass, oilseeds and sugarcane.

For more information, please visit www.metabolix.com. (MBLX-G)

Source: http://www.ecofilm.com