The European Commission has recommended EU-wide measures be taken against so-called ‘oxo-degradable‘ plastics. In a report published earlier this month, the Commission said that "a process to restrict the use of oxo-plastics in the EU will be started". European Bioplastics (EUBP), the association of the bioplastics industry in Europe, strongly welcomes this clear commitment [...]
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 [...]
Jean-Marc Nony, Sustainable Development Director, SPHERE In each issue of the Bioplastics Bulletin, we present 5 facts about a member of European Bioplastics. This month, Jean-Marc Nony, Sustainable Development Director at SPHERE, shares some information on the French family group and leading European manufacturer of household packaging and bioplastic bags. 5 facts [...]
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 [...]
Non-biodegradable cotton buds prohibited in Italy from 2019: Italy will be the first country to ban non-biodegradable plastic cotton buds as of 2019. The Italian parliament adopted a proposal on 19 December 2017 to only allow the production and sale of cotton buds that are biodegradable and compostable according to the European standard EN [...]
But European Commission misses chance to fully embrace circular benefits of bio-based plastics and biodegradable plastics Berlin, 17 January 2018 – The European Strategy for Plastics, published on Tuesday by the European Commission, sets clear goals to curb plastic waste, increase resource efficiency, and to create value and job growth in Europe, but falls [...]
As we face increasing resource scarcity, we also throw away valuable resources each day in the form of waste. Such waste does not only impact ecosystems, it also signals a lost opportunity to draw more from available resources. In many cases, these waste materials could be reused to limit the stress on natural resources.Secondary materials [...]
The new German packaging law (Verpackungsgesetz, effective from January 2019, we reported earlier this year) includes provisions under which the participation fees for packaging shall be adapted in order to incentivise the use of recycled and renewable materials. The consequential increase in bio-based plastic packaging and the expected rise of new types of materials [...]
Oxo statement, New Plastics Economy, 2017 Oxo-degradable plastics are being produced and sold in many countries, with society being led to believe they safely biodegrade in nature. Yet significant evidence suggests oxo-degradable plastics do not safely biodegrade but fragment into small pieces, contributing to microplastics pollution. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics [...]
With growing market volumes of innovative bio-based and biodegradable plastics such as PLA (polylactic acid), the recycling of these materials is becoming a more viable option. We therefore spoke to Steve Dejonghe from Looplife Polymers Site, a recycler in Belgium that already successfully recycles PLA for a number of industrial projects, about the recyclability [...]