The European Commission is currently revising the EU’s rules on food contact materials (FCMs), particularly in light of its recent initiatives on Single Use Plastics, Sustainable Products, and the revision of the rules on packaging and packaging waste. In order to meet the EU’s ambitious environmental objectives, the Commission should introduce specific rules to [...]
Source: Verbund kompostierbare Produkte e.V. A new standard has been published this summer to establish the requirements and specifications for home compostable carrier bags. This should put an end to the debates around home composting, which we all know takes place under less controlled conditions and lower temperatures than industrial composting processes. [...]
In its efforts to tackle the challenges related to waste, overpackaging, and sustainable production, the European Commission not only introduces additional regulations, such as the Single-use Plastics Directive, but also focuses on revising existing legislation. A milestone in the EU’s approach to respond to the environmental challenges we are facing is the revision of [...]
Nico Arbeck, Head of Department Material Use at C.A.R.M.E.N. e.V. Read below a guest article by Nico Arbeck, Head of Department Material Use at C.A.R.M.E.N. e.V. Final report available Together with nine partners, C.A.R.M.E.N. e.V. carried out the model project "Practical test of compostable bags – circular economy with compostable fruit and [...]
Inhabitants: 11,3 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 autonomous regions: Flanders (FLA), Wallonia (WAL) and Brussels (BRU). As waste management is a regional authority, each of these regions have their own [...]
Inhabitants: 5,5 mio Area: 338,424 km2 NATIONAL WASTE SYSTEM - GENERAL LEGISLATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE Authorities for waste management and organic waste management (if different), and key contacts: Ministry of the Environment (YM) Environmental Protection Department/Sustainable Materials Economy Ari Seppänen, Counsellor, e-mail: ari.seppanen@ym.fi, phone: +358 295 250 266 Finnish association for biological waste treatment: http://www.biolaitosyhdistys.fi/ Speaker Christoph [...]
DIN CERTCO offers certification for biodegradable mulch films: Mulch films help to protect plants, improve soil and increase yields in agriculture and horticulture. A major problem with conventional mulch films is the time-consuming collection of residues after use. Biodegradable mulch films offer a unique advantage as they can be left on the field to [...]
From 2023 onwards, separate collection of bio-waste will be mandatory across Europe in order to increase the overall amounts of separately collected waste and to help meet the ambitious recycling targets set out in the new EU waste rules. Yet, the separate waste collection systems (including for bio-waste) still vary widely among the 28 [...]
Novamont, a leader in the development of bioplastics based in Italy, commissioned IGlux Witzenhausen GmbH and Witzenhausen-Institut GmbH to conduct a scientific study into the behaviour of biodegradable carrier bags made from MATER-BI – the bioplastic made by Novamont – in German anaerobic digestion plants. The use of biodegradable bags made from MATER-BI was tested [...]
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 [...]
