Dear members,

Please find below an overview of activities carried out by European Bioplastics throughout September 2021.  

BON Europe

BON Europe (Bioplastics Organisations Network) is an alliance of European Bioplastics and European national bioplastics organisations.  

After a summer break in August, the group met again on 16 September. BON members shared insights from their countries, such as the status of the law on plastic tax in Spain, the ongoing negotiations to reach a Green Deal on coffee pads and tea bags in Belgium, or the French association’s efforts to have EN 13432-certified bags allowed for biowaste collection. Concerning the implementation of the SUPD, it was further discussed how members of EUBP and BON could reach out to Members States to pronounce their concern over the unharmonized national transposition.   

EUBP’s WG REGA is striving for a closer cooperation with BON members to better tackle issues, such as the revision of the PPWD, also on the national level. There will be individual meetings in the coming months to evaluate possible joint actions and support. 

For more information regarding BON Europe, please contact Katharina Hinse (hinse@european-bioplastics.org).

Product Groups

Product Group Bio-based

PG Biobased met on 28 September to discuss the evaluation and next steps regarding the JRC methodology document on LCA of alternative feedstocks for plastics production, which has been published earlier this year in June. As the methodology still has obvious flaws and includes several points that strongly favour fossil-based materials, the group decided to prepare a short publication in simple language that gives the final recommendation not to use this methodology for comparative LCAs of fossil-based and bio-based products.  

The group further discussed the role of bio-based plastics in the circular economy and how to achieve a stronger presence regarding advocacy activities. The group chairs and convenor plan to prepare a document that can be shared with WG REGA to discuss the most relevant points. 

The Working Plan for PG Biobased 2021-2023 is finalised, and the PG is now asked to give their approval by 8 October. The same deadline exists for confirming active participation in the three Task Forces. 

The next meeting of PG Biobased will take place on 25 January 2022, at 9:00am. 

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

Product Group Biodegradables

PG Biodegradables is currently finalizing the Working Plan 2021-2023, which includes compostable plastics in organic recycling, home composting, and in other waste streams as well as biodegradation in the open environment as focus points.  

During the summer, EUBP has received a lot of input for its position on microplastics, which has been included. A final draft of the document will be shared in October. 

A first draft of the position paper on compostable plastics in anaerobic digestion is currently under development and will be discussed during the next meeting in November. 

To monitor EU activities regarding the registration of polymers under REACH, a small ad hoc working group with experts from the PG and the WG Standardisation was set up. The group met on 7 September. A detailed overview over the registration project was given, and it was discussed whether and under what conditions biodegradable polymers could be exempted from registration, e.g., by being classified as “polymers of low concern”. A second meeting is planned for 15 October. 

The next meeting of PG Biodegradables is scheduled for 9 November 2021, 9:00am. 

For more information regarding PG Biodegradables and the TF Marine, please contact Constance Ißbrücker (issbruecker@european-bioplastics.org).

Working Group Standardisation

There are currently no activities in the WG, and the next meeting will only be scheduled after the meeting of CEN/TC 261 SC4 WG 2 (21 October) to analyse the outcome. 

EUBP and several members of the WG are currently active in task forces organized by the CEN group to discuss the first round of comments submitted for the revision of EN13432. 

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

Communications

Please find under the following link a selection of relevant media clippings from September 2021 (online). 

During 13-17 September, as official event partner, EUBP supported this year’s Bioplastics Week organized by the Plastics Industry Association. Throughout the five campaign days, Comms published a broad set of posts that included graphics and other visuals. EUBP was also featured in a series of interviews. In comparison to the previous Bioplastics Week, Comms was successful in further increasing EUBP’s social media activity. 

In order to improve the planning of EUBP’s social media activity, Comms has started assessing different online tools that allow a better social media management. A first trial version with software from Zoho will be completed beginning of October. Another software trial with Hootsuite will start in October. 

In September, Comms also started to coordinate an update of the policy section on the EUBP website. As a first step, an overview text on the Single-use Plastics Directive was included. For October and November additional texts on the Green Deal, the PPWD, taxonomy, and on agriculture are planned. 

In order to ensure additional media coverage during the European Bioplastics Conference, Comms has started to invite individual journalists to attend the conference. The promotion campaign for the event, including texts in the EUBP Newsletter and posts on EUBP’s social media channels, is ongoing.  

For more information or questions concerning the communications activities of EUBP, please contact Oliver Buchholz (buchholz@european-bioplastics.org).

Seedling Logo

The Advisory Committee for the Seedling Mark had its regular Jour Fixe meeting on 3 September. The Committee discussed certification issues on regenerated cellulose, chemical recycling of PLA, as well as the necessary activities regarding the use of PFAS and the revision of ISO 16929.  

EUBP also informed about the discussion to accept a BPI representative in the advisory committee and to send its own delegate to the BPI meetings (EUBP staffer).  

The ACS will meet again on 3 December 2021, 2:00pm. 

For more information on the Seedling Logo or the Certification Scheme, please contact Constance Ißbrücker (issbruecker@european-bioplastics.org). 

Events

In September, EUBP decided to change the conference’s format to a hybrid event and started to set-up the digital conference website. Two more Silver Sponsorships (Neste, TÜV Austria) were signed as well as two additional Bronze Sponsorships (Columbus Instruments). A decision about the technical supplier for the on-site conference and the streaming services was taken as well. 

The program is almost finalized, and a first mailing with a sneak peek of the speakers already took place.  

The final program is expected to be published in the beginning of October.  

For more information or questions concerning the annual conference and further EUBP events, please contact Denise Valdix (valdix@european-bioplastics.org or conference@european-bioplastics.org).

Projects

BIOnTop (Project month: 28 of 48) 

https://biontop.eu/ (BBI-JU) https://vipriscar.eu/https://www.bbi.europa.eu/bbiimpact-photo-competition - About%20the%20competition 

As BIOnTop reached half-time, dissemination activities have been increased.  

The first two years of the project have already produced promising preliminary findings, including the formulation of the developed co-polymers by batch polymerisation and reactive extrusion as well as the upscaling of the selected lactic acid copolymers to the semi-industrial scale. Furthermore, first steps towards the fabrication of the final products have been taken by characterizing the PLA-based copolymer compounds and the processing parameters for sheets, films, and filaments. The next phase of the project’s pilot production and validation of the developed bio-based packaging materials is currently ongoing. Initial experimental tests of the different desired end-of-life routes, including recycling and reprocessing, as well as industrial and home composting, are well underway. Moreover, first interims life cycle sustainability assessments have been conducted for the developed materials. 

BIOMAC (Project month: 9 of 48) 

https://www.biomac-oitb.eu/ (Horizon 2020) 

EUBP and the University of Thessaloniki finalised all official amendments and contracts for IBB to join the project consortium and take over the project’s Single Entry Point (SEP) tasks, which were originally assigned to EUBP.  

PRESERVE (Project month: 9 of 48) 

https://www.preserve-h2020.eu/ (Horizon 2020) 

As the project’s Communication Manager, EUBP is currently preparing a training plan (deliverable 8.3) that sets out a structure for knowledge transfer activities and educational sessions throughout the project. These activities are to ensure that the project’s research data and findings are made available according to the Open Data Management Principles of EU-funded projects. The deliverable is due at the end of 2021 and will be available on the project website. 

EUBP is also taking an active part in exploring cooperation options and cluster activities for the PRESERVE project. In particular a close cooperation between PRESERVE and two Horizon 2020 sibling projects, UPLIFT and upPE-T, which receive funding from the same call (CE-BIOTEC-09-2020: Upcycling bio-plastics of food and drinks packaging) was successfully established in recent months. 

The three sibling projects aim to share knowledge and efforts to achieve the common objective of reducing plastics waste created by food packaging. One of the first milestones is organising a joint workshop, foreseen in October 2021. It will cover the topics circular economy, recycling, and biodegradable packaging. All projects will also share information about achieved results and set up a joint roadmap for dissemination as well as social humanities activities, and a joint policy paper. Members of each consortium will meet monthly to discuss and coordinate the planned activities.  

BIOSUPPACK (Project month: 4 of 42) 

https://biosuppack.eu/ (BBI-JU) 

The BIOSUPPACK consortium constituted its Technical Committee, which will meet every three months and held its first meeting on 14 September. This will ensure a regular evaluation of material and packaging development progresses along the project runtime, additionally to the external advisory board. The latter was informed by EUBP about BIOSUPPACK’s kick-off and the planning for the first project year. The advisory board is expected to meet virtually for the first time along with the next consortium meeting in December. In WP7, led by EUBP, a first meeting with AIMPLAS and ENCO was held on 23 September to discuss all further communication & dissemination activities for the year ending. In addition, the project website was officially announced and published. 

Status of project partnering, other HORIZON 2020/EUROPE projects, and proposal/grant agreements: 

With the opening of several new calls in the upcoming HORIZON EUROPE framework, EUBP will continue monitoring opportunities and reports on further developments. 

Planned activities

Communications: 

• Update policy section of EUB website (Oct/Nov) 
• Further assessment of social media management tools (Oct-Dec) 
• Development article on PPWD for Packaging Journal (publication on 27 October)  
• EUBP Conference 2021: further implementation of media partnership agreements 

BON Europe: 

• next web meeting on 14 October 
• Update of “European Composting Landscape” 
• Draft reaction on SUPD implementation 

PG Bio-based: 

• Next PG meeting on 25 January 2022 
• Prepare reaction on methodology part of JRC study 
• Start TF Projects 
  

PG Biodegradables: 

• Next PG meeting on 9 November October 
• Finalization of position paper on microplastics  
• Preparation of position on anaerobic digestion 
• Finalisation of Working Plan 2021 - 2023 
  

WG Standardisation: 

• Following the work of CEN/TC 261 SC 4 WG 2 and the revision of EN 13432 

Seedling Logo: 

• ACS Meeting on 3 December 

Projects and Networks: 

• BIOnTop Newsletter 2nd issue due in October 2021 
• PRESERVE Del. 8.3 due December 2021 
• PRESERVE sibling project workshop on 20 October 2021 

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

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