Dear members,

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

Regulatory Affairs (WG REGA)

With regard to the Fertilisers Regulation, the trilogues between Commission, Parliament and Council are progressing very slowly. Sources in the Permanent Representations shared insights that the Bulgarian Presidency will not be able to finalise this file during their term, and the Austrians are prone to inherit the regulation. We scheduled a conference call with the Danish representation and experts from Copenhagen for beginning of June and will continue to work on meeting BU and PT in the coming weeks.

Our contact programme with regard to the Parliament’s own-initiative report (INI) on the Plastics Strategy continued in May. After meeting the rapporteur and its shadow-rapporteurs in April, we organised meetings with Council representatives from PL, DK, SK, EE, LUX, LV, CY, AT, and NL in May and will continue to engage with Member States representatives until mid-June. EUBP furthermore shared specific suggestions with the Council on how the Council Conclusions could potentially be revised with regard to the properties bio-based and biodegradability in the Plastics Strategy context.

On 28 May, the Commission published its Draft Directive on Marine Litter and Single Use Plastics. The proposal represents a rather vague attempt of adding measures to the provisions of the revised waste legislation (recycling targets, organic recycling). Neither the potential positive impact of said waste legislation has been considered nor are key stipulations of the draft directive clearly defined (such as ‘readily available, more sustainable alternatives’ that are mentioned in the proposal several times). EUBP published a first reaction on 29 May and is currently developing a position paper and potential amendments that we plan to share with the Commission, the Parliament and the Council until latest mid of June. Discussions in the Parliament are planned to be finalised before summer break (mid of July).

Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive: With regard to the revision of the essential requirements (ER) for packaging, a first discussion took place behind closed doors with Commission representatives and expert groups on 14 May. Intelligence on these meetings suggests that only very broad statements were given and that the process on the Directive on Marine litter and Single Use Plastics will need to progress first. We will continue to monitor any progress on this initiative closely.

On 19 May, EUBP participated in a panel discussion on plastics pollution during the European Green Party’s 28^th Council in Antwerp. You can find a video of the full discussion here (Facebook account required).

The next WG REGA meeting will take place on 13 June in Brussels.

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

Product Groups

Product Group Biobased

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 28 May to discuss the latest draft on the Fact Sheet on mechanical recycling of bio-based plastics. 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.

All projects will be presented at the next PG meeting 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 next meeting of the PG Biodegradables will be held on Thursday 28 June, one day after the Members Meeting, from 11am-1pm. The main topics to be discussed will be the directive on the reduction of single use plastics and the fertilisers regulation.

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

WG Standardisation held a web-meeting on May 9. The group officially elected its chairpersons – Francesco Degli Innocenti (Novamont) will be the chair, and Sam Deconinck will be the vice-chair for the upcoming two years. The WG furthermore discussed the latest development of the standard for home compostable carrier bags (CEN/TC 261) and the new draft of ISO 17088 (ISO/TC 61). Another topic discussed was the future communication of the Seedling Logo. It was agreed that “compostable” should be replaced by a more transparent wording. The WG will now develop a list of possible terms including their pros and cons and send this as a recommendation to the EUBP board. The topic will also be brought up in the next meeting of the PG Biodegradables on June 28.

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 May 2018.

EUBP published a press release on the Commission’s proposal for a Directive to reduce certain single-use plastic products. The proposal is a meaningful addition to existing legislation and strategies, unfortunately, however, it remains vague regarding sustainable alternatives. Read our full statement here.

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

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 is in full swing. The exhibition space is starting to fill, and we are happy to announce Biotec and Total Corbion PLA as sponsors of the event. Several (media) cooperation initiatives were taken in May, encouraging delegates to take advantage of the Early Bird fee until 30 June 2018.

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).  

EUBP was invited to the Biobased Packaging Value Chain Workshop organised by the DanuBioValNet project in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 24 May to speak about the about the global trends and challenges of bioplastics in policy, the market, and consumer. Next to EUBP, other keynote speakers included MEP Franc Bogovic and the Tomaz Boh, Head of the Science Division at the Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science, and Sport.

EUBP also opened the 5^th PLA World Congress on 29-30 May in Munich, organised by the bioplastics MAGAZINE, with a keynote speech on the drivers and challenges of a dynamic market development of bioplastics in Europe.

Planned activities June 2018

• WG Regulatory Affairs:
  • Plastics Strategy: gathering intelligence on revised report; 
  • Fertilisers Regulation: engagement with Council and EPP fraction in EP;
  • Marine litter / Single use plastics: preparation of position and amendments, start of engagement programme;
  • Essential requirements: monitoring progress (dependent on Marine Litter / Single-use Plastics file);
• Position regarding bioplastics LCA (TF1)
• Development Fact Sheet Mechanical Recycling and Chemical Recycling (TF2)
• Background Paper on bio-based building blocks (TF3)
• Update of recycling meta study (PG Biodegradables) 
• WG Standardisation web meeting on 9 May
• Background paper on the biodegradation of mulch films (PG Biodegradables)
• Finalise story board for animated videos (WG Comms)

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