(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Northern Technologies International Corporation, a manufacturer of sustainable biobased and certified compostable bioplastic materials, announced that it has entered into an agreement with Italy based Naturfuels S.r.l. to distribute its Natur-Tec(R) bioplastic materials and products in the Italian market.
Since January 1, 2011, the Italian government has been enforcing a ban on the production and distribution of conventional non-biodegradable polyethylene plastic bags. Italian consumers use about 300 plastic bags per capita annually, totaling to more than 20 billion plastic bags consumed every year. According to environmental lobbyist Legambiente, this number of bags represents approximately one-fifth of Europe's entire usage, and requires about 200 KT of polyethylene plastic resin to produce each year.
Under the terms of the distribution agreement, NTIC will supply Naturfuels with its patented high-strength Natur-Tec(R) BF703BX compostable film grade resin to be used for the production of bio-plastic shopping and garbage bags on conventional plastic film production equipment. BF703BX resin based film has been previously certified to be fully compostable in strict accordance to the European standard of EN13432 for compostable plastics by AIB-Vincotte, a respected Belgian 3rd-party certification provider.