EUBP stresses importance of improving waste management on land to solve the problem of marine litter Press Statement Berlin, 6 June 2016 – In a recent report on ‘marine plastic debris and microplastics’ published earlier last month, the UNEP describes the sources and effects of plastics and microplastics in the oceans and outlines potential [...]
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 [...]
Certified bio-based and compostable coffee capsule for Nespresso systems Original Food GmbH presented a certified compostable coffee capsule for Nespresso systems at Biofach 2016 trade fair earlier in February. With the launch of the capsule, the producer of the renowned Kaffa wild coffee underlines its commitment in environmental protection and sustainability, including the entire [...]
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 [...]
Biodegradable plastics The property of biodegradability does not depend on the resource basis of a material. This feature is directly linked to the chemical structure of the polymer and can benefit particular applications, in particular packaging. Biodegradable plastic types offer new ways of recovery and recycling (organic recycling). If [...]