Amid concerns that manufacturers were misleading the public when using terms such as “biodegradable”, “bioplastic” and “compostable”, the UK government called for experts to help it develop standards for plastics. Hence, plastic will have to break down into organic matter and carbon dioxide in the open air within 2 years to be classed as biodegradable […]
Category Archives: News
The European Commission (EC) is currently revising the Essential Requirements for Packaging as part of the amendment of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD). They relate to the manufacturing and composition of packaging, its reusable and recoverable nature as well as to the minimization of hazardous materials. These requirements, and the associated harmonised […]
A report recently published by the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) and Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) shows that with only 16% of the biowaste potential being used, the biowaste management still remains an untapped potential for the European Union to further transition to a Circular Economy. Both organizations jointly produced a first-of-its-kind report estimating the current […]
The Witzenhausen Institute and the University of Bayreuth conducted a very interesting study, analysing the compost of several German industrial composting facilities for possible plastic content deriving from compostable biowaste bags. The field study concluded that compostable bags, certified according to the European standard EN 13432, do not pose any challenges to the quality of the compost. During the research project, the results of which were published in the May edition (05/2020, in German) of the German trade magazine „Müll und Abfall“, the scientists analysed a total of 30 samples and in 25 […]
In the course of implementing the European Strategy for Plastics, so far, the European Commission (EC) initiated a remarkable number of research studies. The recently published study on the ‘Relevance of biodegradable and compostable plastic products in a circular economy’ ranks amongst the most important ones for the bioplastics industry. It aims at contributing to the development […]
Last week, The Guardian reported on an interesting project, which has a great potential to revolutionize the beverage industry. The Dutch renewable chemicals company Avantium developed a bio-based plastic bottle made from PEF, which could substitute the conventional plastic bottles made from fossil resources. The bioplastic bottle is designed to fully degrade within a year in a […]