The EU Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste, as modified by the EU Directive on lightweight carrier bags in 2015, tasked the European Commission to adopt specifications for labels of home compostable plastic carrier bags. Accordingly, in June 2016, the Commission asked the relevant European Standardisation Committee, CEN, to develop a standard on home compostable [...]
On 7 April 2016, the European Parliament Intergroup on ‘Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development’ invited a group of policy-makers and experts from regional authorities, NGOs and other stakeholders along the plastics value chain to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the role of plastics in the circular economy at a meeting entitled "The [...]
The new wording of the French implementation decree on single-use plastic bags, which was published by the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy on 1 February 2016, sets out clear requirements for the reduction of single-use plastic bags in favour of bio-based, biodegradable and home-compostable bags, in line with the EU Directive. [...]
Since January 2015, separate collection of organic waste is mandatory in Germany. The implementation, however, has been rather slow, and not all municipalities provide separate biowaste collection schemes yet. The German association for compostable products ‘Verbund kompostierbare Produkte e.V.’ therefore recently called for municipalities to implement the separate collection of biowaste and support the [...]
Organic recycling Compostability is a clear benefit when plastic items are mixed with biowaste. Under these conditions, mechanical recycling is not feasible, neither for plastics nor biowaste. The use of compostable plastics makes the mixed waste suitable for organic recycling (industrial composting or anaerobic digestion), enabling the shift from [...]
Mechanical recycling A large share of bioplastics produced today is mechanically recyclable. Biobased plastics that are chemically and physically identical to their fossil-based counterparts but made from biomass instead of fossil-based sources, are called drop-in materials, such as biobased PE or biobased PET. The only difference to their fossil-based equivalents [...]
Press Release French decree supports biobased and home-compostable bags No single-use plastic bags at cash registers as of 1 July 2016 Berlin, 11 February 2016. European Bioplastics (EUBP), the association representing the bioplastics industry in Europe, welcomes the new wording of the French implementation decree on single-use plastic bags, which was published by the French [...]
Thai PPT to invest $1.1 bln in bioplastics: Thailand's energy firm PTT Pcl said it’s planning to invest 40 billion baht (1.11 billion US Dollar) in bioplastics and environmentally-friendly products from 2014 to 2020. The state-controlled group aims for bioplastics to account for 2 percent of the firm's revenue by 2020. FDCA and [...]
EU decision to phase out plastic bags strengthens compostable bags Berlin, 30 April 2015 – On Tuesday, 28 April 2015, the European Parliament gave its final approval for the previously agreed legislation amending the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) to reduce the use of conventional single use plastic carrier bags. European Bioplastics welcomes [...]
Press Release European Bioplastics welcomes the European Parliament’s call for a paradigm shift towards a resource-efficient circular economy Berlin, 14 July 2015. European Bioplastics (EUBP) welcomes the European Parliament’s (EP) adoption of the own-initiative report of Finnish MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen on ‘resource efficiency: moving towards a circular economy’. „The European Union needs to use [...]