The European chemical industry faces enormous challenges to meet the climate goals set by the European Commission in the framework of the Paris Agreement. This agreement aims at keeping a global temperature rise below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5°C. In this context, the position paper [...]
The study Environmental deterioration of biodegradable, oxo-biodegradable, compostable, and conventional plastic carrier bags in the sea, soil, and open-air over a 3-year period carried out by Imogen E. Napper and Richard C. Thompson of the University of Plymouth, whose results were announced yesterday, intends to provide insights into the ‘environmental deterioration’ of plastic carrier [...]
The European Commission has published a new study Environmental impact assessments of innovative bio-based products. The study aims at providing science-based facts and evidences on the environmental impacts of bio-based products for comparison with petrochemical plastic counterparts, in order to support the future bioeconomy policy and decision-making at the EU level. The report concludes that [...]
The European Commission has delivered the report A circular economy for plastics, which provides research insights from EU-funded projects to support policy development and funding decisions. The objective is to foster the use of pastics that could circulate with full transparency at high-value usage, while minimising the risks to human health and the environment. The [...]
Inhabitants: 11,6 mio Area: 30.528 km2 NATIONAL WASTE SYSTEM – GENERAL LEGISLATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE Authorities for waste management and organic waste management (if different), and key contacts: Belgium is divided in three regions: Flanders (FLA), Wallonia (WAL) and Brussels (BRU). As waste management is a regional authority, each of these regions have their [...]
Global Plastic Leak Project kicks off to tackle plastic and microplastic leakage Key stakeholders from the private and public sector have become members of the Plastic Leak Project (PLP), which intends to develop robust metrics to locate, measure and map plastic and microplastic pollution across the value chain and define effective actions to fix the problem [...]
Nova-Institut, an independent research institute based in Germany, has carried out a sustainability study of bio-based raw materials for the chemical industry. The assessment analyses the strengths and weaknesses of sugar plants, starch plants, virgin wood as well as waste and residues for the production of bio-based chemicals. According to the results, first-generation fermentable sugar [...]
Nestlé and Danimer Scientific partner to develop a biodegradable water bottle: Nestlé and Danimer Scientific, a leading developer and manufacturer of biodegradable plastic products, have announced a global partnership to develop biodegradable bottles. Nestlé and Danimer Scientific will collaborate to design and manufacture bio-based resins for Nestlé’s water business using Danimer Scientific’s PHA polymer Nodax™. In [...]
The recent study “Land use mediated GHG emissions and spillovers from increased consumption of bioplastics” published by the University of Bonn calls into question the contribution of bio-based plastics to climate change mitigation. Although the study describes that fossil-based plastics are responsible for 15 percent of the global CO2 emissions*, it fails to acknowledge [...]
Contribution article by Ville Uusitalo, Assistant Professor at the LUT-University (School of Energy Systems, Sustainable Science) and Annamari Enström, Senior Researcher, LCA at Neste Corporation. Global warming impacts of different products and processes from life cycle assessment (LCA) perspective is widely performed with standardized methods. Global warming impact assessments in LCA are, typically, carried [...]
