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Milliken & Company’s Chemical Division, Spartanburg, S.C., has joined the Global Organization for PHA (GO!PHA; ) to help address the technical and market development challenges related to polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biodegradable biopolymers for single-use packaging and beyond. GO!PHA (gopha.org) is a coalition of industry and academic stakeholders dedicated to advancing the development, commercialization and adoption of PHA polymers through advocacy and knowledge sharing.

Milliken will collaborate with other GO!PHA members to prioritize technical issues and explore ways to solve them by adapting its existing high-performance Milliken additives or developing new technologies. The goal is to help improve the processing, performance, aesthetics and other important attributes of PHA and to expand this family of materials into a broader range of packaging applications.

Said Milliken Chemical Div.’s v.p. of plastics additives Allen Jacoby, “Milliken’s participation in GO!PHA supports our corporate sustainability goals by giving us a collaborative platform to tackle the challenges of ocean plastics and natural resource conservation Replacing traditional materials with biobased, biodegradable PHA polymers can provide lower impact options for food service and flexible packaging. We look forward to working with other GO!PHA members on enhancements that can make PHA polymers more appealing to product designers, converters and consumers.”

Said GO!PHA executive board member Rick Passenier,“We are delighted to welcome Milliken to GO!PHA. Milliken’s polymer additives expertise and extensive development capabilities add tremendous value to our efforts in optimizing PHA properties and processability, and expanding the use of the material in single-use packaging applications.”