Biologisch abbaubare Verpackungsmaterialien - die Lösung des Müllproblems?

Application fields and environmental aspects for biodegradable materials in packaging - especially for materials from renewable resources - are currently discussed. The aim of this article is both to demonstrate the option for reducing the use of limited resources by the application of those typ of materials as weil as and to show that boundary conditions in waste management (re-use of biodegradable waste by biological methods on a wide basis) and functional properties of the related products are still very limited. The aspect of functional properties is discussed for the example of barrier properties (gases, water, vapor). As a technical improvement method, vacuum coating with thin inorganic barriers layers will be demonstrated. As a conclution, it has to be stated that we will need about one decade before biodegradable materials will enter the field of broad application