In response to the EU Plastics Strategy published by the European Commission earlier this year, the European Bioeconomy Alliance (EUBA) presented a discussion paper to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to urge the institutions to underpin the Commission's approach with concrete actions on how to realise the potential of bio-based [...]
As part of the Circular Economy 100 (CE100), an innovation programme of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a new report on Renewable Materials for a Low-carbon and Circular Economy has been published together with the companies and CE100 partners Essity, IKEA, Royal DSM and Tetra Pak. According to the report, renewable materials present significant market [...]
On 18 April, the European Parliament approved the package to update the EU waste legislation, including a revision of the Waste Framework Directive and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. Apart from new ambitious recycling and landfilling targets to boost the re-use of valuable materials in waste, the new legislation also acknowledges that bio-based [...]
NatureWorks names Richard Altice new President and CEO: On 24 April, NatureWorks' board of directors named Richard Altice as the company's new President and Chief Executive Officer, replacing Marc Verbruggen, who led the company from 2008 to his retirement in 2017. Altice comes to NatureWorks from PolyOne Corporation where he was Senior Vice President [...]
On 16 January 2018, the European Commission published its Communication ‘A European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy’. According to the Commission, this proposal is an ambitious step towards making the European plastics system more resource-efficient and drive the change from a linear to a circular system. Bioplastics provide crucial impulses for innovation [...]
Mathew Halter The joint venture of DuPont and Tate & Lyle has developed a proprietary process that uses plant-based instead of petroleum-based feedstocks to produce 1,3-propanediol. Today, the company provides solutions for a wide variety of markets and applications through its bio-based performance brands Susterra® and Zemea® propanediol in addition to Bio-PDO™, [...]
Constance Ißbrücker, Head of Environmental Affairs, EUBP The consequences of climate change and the finite nature of fossil resources constitute two broadly acknowledged challenges for society in the decades to come. Bioplastics, which are derived fully or at least in part from renewable resources, have the unique advantage over conventional plastics to [...]
Revised legislative package on waste acknowledges that bioplastics play a key role in achieving EU recycling goals Berlin, 28 February 2018 – The provisional agreements reached by the European Council and Parliament on the EU waste legislative package published by the Commission in 2015, recognise the benefits of bioplastics. The new legislation acknowledges that [...]
The European Commission will increase the funding for research and development of innovative bio-based plastics and to further improve plastic recycling. During the press conference on the European Strategy on Plastics earlier this month, the Commission’s Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said: “we are also ready to finance or increase financing for new innovations in recyclability [...]
Companies in the food sector are increasingly looking for alternatives to conventional plastic packaging to reduce their CO2 footprint and are switching to packaging solutions made from renewable raw materials. A team at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands is studying the perceptions of bio-based packaging among consumers and aims to give manufacturers [...]
