plastic film

In addition, the biodegradability of ECM's films does not jeopardize the products' quality. Plastic products making use of the ECM technology can be manufactured to be clear, as well as opaque, and in any color. The Company believes that the average consumer will be unable to differentiate between traditional plastic products and those produced with ECM technology on the basis of appearance or performance.

In most applications, producing 100 pounds of biodegradable plastic only requires one pound of ECM MasterBatch Pellets. Consequently, the use of ECM technology only increases production costs by approximately $0.083/lb. (less with orders leading to appropriate economies of scale) compared to products made wholly with traditional plastic resins.

ECM's masterbatch only nominally effects production costs. This is largely because the technology does not rely on changing to re-engineered plastics which have not achieved economies of scale but merely requires adding a small percentage of a masterbatch to existing resins.

ECM engaged several renowned testing laboratories to independently establish the biodegradability of ECM's plastic films. The tests concluded that the films were biodegradable under short and long-term aerobic conditions and asserted that they would degrade under anaerobic conditions over a longer period of time. In addition, the tests concluded that the films did not produce any toxic residue harmful to living organisms in land or water.

ECM's technology is a process which enables the microorganisms in the environment to metabolize the molecular structure of plastic films into an inert humus-like form that is harmless to the environment. ECM's process utilizes several proprietary bio-active compounds that are combined into a masterbatch pellet that is easily added to plastic resins using existing technology. The biodegradation process begins with proprietary swelling agent that, when combined with heat and moisture, expands the plastics' molecular structure. After the swelling agent creates space within the plastic's molecular structure, the masterbatch's combination of bio-active compounds, discovered after thousands of laboratory trials, attracts a colony of microorganisms that metabolize and neutralize the plastic.

Tests concluded that
the films were biodegradable
under short and long-term
aerobic conditions