Dear members,

Please find below an overview of the activities of European Bioplastics throughout April 2018. 

Regulatory Affairs (WG REGA)

With regard to the Fertilisers Regulation, the trilogues between Commission, Parliament and Council are ongoing, and the annexes will be discussed in technical meetings (which take place nearly every week). EUBP continued to meet Member States (FR, UK) and plans to meet DK, PT and BU in the coming weeks.

The Parliament’s own-initiative report (INI) on the Plastics Strategy has been published at the end of March. The report briefly mentions bioplastics, stating that standards should be developed where necessary, a criteria based list of products should be developed where compostable plastics were preferable, bio-based feedstock might be an alternative, more research should be done, and oxo-degradable plastics should be banned. EUBP mostly agrees with the gist of the points presented but drafted amendments to refine the wording in the draft report. The EP Environment Committee will collect amendments for discussion until 16 May. European Bioplastics met all relevant shadow rapporteurs in April and shared its position and amendment suggestions for the report with them. During the meeting with shadow rapporteur and French MEP Sylvie Goddyn, we were kindly joined and supported by Marie Plancke of Club Bioplastiques. We will now focus on the Council as a draft opinion we recently obtained only implicitly refers to bio-based plastics and does not mention compostability / organic recycling at all. We organised first meetings with PL, DK, SK, LV, CY, AT for the month of May.

With regard to the Commission’s initiative on Marine Litter and Single Use Plastics the legislative proposal will be slightly delayed but is still set to come out end of May. EUBP will try to gain insights into the scope of the paper before publication in time for the next WG REGA meeting.

Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive: On 14 May, there will be two meetings of the Committee for the adaptation to scientific and technical progress and of the expert group on waste regarding the revision of the Essential Requirements for packaging and also delegated acts from the ‘bagislation’ period (home compostable packaging standard). We aspire to obtain details on the discussions led in time for the next WG REGA meeting.

WG REGA will meet next on 16 May in Brussels. 

For detailed information on the work of the WG Regulatory Affairs, contact Kristy-Barbara Lange (lange@european-bioplastics.org). 

Product Groups

Task Force (TF) 1 (Sustainability evaluation) is preparing a position on LCA for bio-based plastics, which will be discussed in the group in the next weeks.

TF 2 (End of life) had a call on 19 April to discuss a new draft on the Fact Sheet on mechanical recycling of bio-based plastics. All suggested changes have been implemented, and the new version has been circulated in the TF for finalisation. The group plans to prepare a similar Fact Sheet for chemical recycling in the next weeks.

TF 3 (Chemicals and intermediates) is currently preparing the background paper on bio-based building blocks based on the mapping, which has been finalised in March.

The next meeting of the PG Biobased will be on 28 June, one day after the Members Meeting, from 9-11am.

For more information regarding bio-based plastics including sustainability issues and the work of the PG, please contact Constance Ißbrücker (issbruecker@european-bioplastics.org).

Product Group Biodegradables

The PG is currently revising the background paper on EN 13432 certified plastics in industrial composting plants and will update the meta study about the behaviour of bioplastic films in mechanical recycling. The draft will be sent to the members in May.

The next meeting of the PG Biodegradables will be on Thursday 28 June, one day after the Members Meeting, from 11am-1pm.

For more information regarding biodegradable and compostable plastics and the work of the PG, please contact Constance Ißbrücker (issbruecker@european-bioplastics.org).

Working Group Standardisation

EUBP participated in the web meeting of CEN/TC 249 WG 24 on 19 April. The group discussed, inter alia, the strategy and responsibilities for the next months. Of special interest is the identification of relevant standardisation work with focus on the EU’s Plastics Strategy.

CEN/TC 261/SC 4/ WG 2 met on 17 April in Saint Denis, France, to discuss the last comments on the standard on the home compostability of plastic carrier bags. An application for a New Work Item Proposal (NWIP) will be sent to the TC.

The German DIN committee for biodegradable plastics met on 25 April to discuss the latest developments regarding standards on CEN and ISO level, including a new draft for ISO 17088.

WG Standardisation will have its first meeting as a web conference on May 9. The group will officially elect chairpersons and furthermore discuss the standard for home compostable carrier bags (CEN/TC 261) and the new draft of ISO 17088 (ISO/TC 61). There will also be a discussion on the future communication of the Seedling Logo.

For more information on standards for bioplastics in general, current standardisation processes, and certification of bioplastics, please contact Constance Ißbrücker (issbruecker@european-bioplastics.org).

Communications

Please find at the following link a selection of relevant media clippings from April 2018.

EUBP published a comprehensive article on recycling and composting of bioplastics in the latest issue of the German magazine Müll und Abfall, one of the leading magazines of the recycling industry. The article was developed as a response to a recent increase in misinformation and myths around bioplastics spread on German media, spearheaded by the Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), an alleged environmental organisation, that is leading a campaign against single-use plastics in Germany. EUBP’s article is published alongside an article by the DUH in the same magazine issue to rebut some of the false claims that are made. You find the article in the media clippings (link) above.

In case you missed the April issue of our ‘Bioplastics Bulletin’, you can read it here.

The Working Group Communications was able to gather the funding to produce two short animated video clips on bioplastics. The video scripts will be reworked in the coming weeks, and production of the videos will start before the summer break. The videos will be used online and on social media and are aimed at the general and interested public in order to correct some of the most common misunderstandings about bioplastics.

For more information or questions concerning the communications activities of EUBP, please contact Katrin Schwede (schwede@european-bioplastics.org).

Events

The registration for the 13th European Bioplastics Conference taking place on 4/5 December 2018 at the Titanic Chaussee Hotel in Berlin opened in April 2018. A mailing was distributed encouraging delegates to take advantage of the Early Bird fee until 30 June 2018. First participation and exhibitor registrations are coming in, and we are happy to announce Total Corbion PLA to be the first Gold Sponsor of the event.

We are in the process of collecting and evaluating the incoming presentation proposals. If you would like to have the opportunity to speak at the conference, please download the presentation proposal template on our website. The deadline to submit an abstract is 31 July 2018. We also invite proposals for poster presentations giving new projects the opportunity to visualise their work in the fields of biopolymer research, packaging, and building blocks.

If you would like more information about the European Bioplastics Conference or discuss how to get involved this year, please get in touch with Joanna Wilde (wilde@european-bioplastics.org).  

The German BINA project (“Biokunststoffe nachhaltig”), in which EUBP is a member of the advisory board, has come to an end. EUBP participated in the final meeting on 25 April. For more information please visit: https://www.ifbb.wp.hs-hannover.de/bina/.

On 24 April, EUBP gave a presentation at the German Association for Plastics in Agriculture. An introduction to current policy developments and the new standard EN 17033 was given.

Research Projects

EUBP participated in the BBI JU Info Day in Brussels on 17 April, which provided first-hand insights into the priorities of the BBI for the 2018 calls. In the partnering session following the presentations by the BBI, BIC, and Commission executives, EUBP met a number of potential partners for future cooperative projects.

On 26-27 April, EUBP hosted the third biannual project consortium meeting of the PolyBioSkin project in Berlin. All partners were able to attend and engaged in two days of mutual work package updates, an exploitation workshop, and constructive discussions, setting the agenda for the next six months and planning the timely submission of all upcoming deliverables.

To stay up-to-date on PolyBioSkin you can sign up for news on the project website and find there latest newsletter here.

With the 2018 BBI H2020 call for proposals now open, EUBP is actively looking for cooperations and consortium involvements, especially for proposals responding to calls under Strategic Orientations (SO) 3 (Develop innovative bio-based products for identified market applications) and SO4 (Create and accelerate the market-uptake of bio-based products and applications).

If you would like to discuss project cooperations or find our more about our currently on-going projects, please get in touch with Götz Ahrens (ahrens@european-bioplastics.org).

Planned activities May 2018

• Adaptation of processes to comply with the new EU data protection regulation (coming into effect at the end of May)
• WG Regulatory Affairs:
  • Plastics Strategy: engagement with EP and Council; finalisation of EUBA paper
  • Fertilisers Regulation: engagement with Council and EPP fraction in EP (MEP Bogovic / MEP Turcanu)
  • Marine litter / Single use plastics: gathering intelligence on legislative proposal to be published end of May
  • Essential requirements: monitoring of discussions of committee on scientific and technical progress and expert group on waste
• Update Feedstock paper and development of concept paper (TF1)
• Position regarding bioplastics LCA (TF1)
• Development Fact Sheet Mechanical Recycling and Chemical Recycling (TF2)
• Background Paper on bio-based building blocks (TF3)
• Update of the next draft on the Background Paper on compostable plastics and the recycling meta study (PG Biodegradables)
• WG Standardisation web meeting on 9 May
• Draft story board for animated videos (WG Comms)
• Finalise Annual Report 2017 (will be shared at the Members Meeting in June)

If you have any suggestions regarding the content and/or format of our monthly report, please do not hesitate to share them with us. 

This email is sent to all the contacts of our member companies that we have registered in our database. If you would like to share it with further colleagues, kindly send us an email to members@european-bioplastics.org.

Kind regards, 
Hasso v. Pogrell