In recent days, a debate has developed on compostable bioplastics, following a publication by Greenpeace Italy which reports how some plants have difficulty in recycling them together with the wet waste for the production of compost. Part of these artifacts then ends up in incinerators or landfills. The result was a question and answer between Greenpeace Italy and the players in the industrial and recycling chain: Assobioplastica and Biorepack.
Let’s try to clarify by retracing all the stages.
What are compostable plastics
The term “compostable plastic” refers to plastics certified in compliance with the European standard EN 134321 relating to packaging, or with the European standard EN 14995 for other products other than packaging2. These certifications ensure that the material is biodegradable and compostable in a given time in industrial composting plants, i.e .:
- a product is defined biodegradable if it degrades into carbon dioxide, water and biomass, under the action of microorganisms and in the presence of oxygen. A biodegradable product can be either of natural origin (e.g. corn) or made from plastics of fossil origin
- a product is defined compostable if, during a composting process, it decomposes without creating obstacles in the treatment plant and without negatively affecting the quality of the final compost. In no way does the adjective compostable refer to the ability of a material to degrade in the natural environment (e.g. soil, sea)
As reported in Appendix II, European Compost Network, Position paper on compostable plastic, European standard EN 13432: 2000, to be certified as biodegradable and compostable, a material must have some specific characteristics, including:
- pass the biodegradability testi.e. degrade by at least 90% in 6 months in an environment rich in carbon dioxide
- pass the disintegration testi.e. after 12 weeks in contact with organic materials, at least 90% of the material must be made up of fragments smaller than 2 mm
Once these tests have been passed in the laboratory, the product in “compostable plastic” can request the certification bodies “Ok compost”, or “Compostable Cic.
The Greenpeace Italy investigation
As reported in the NGO survey, in Italy the products single use in plastic compostable such as plates, cutlery and rigid packaging, must be disposed of with the scraps food. However, according to ISPRA waste cadastre data, 63% of the fraction organic it is sent to plants that are unlikely to degrade compostable plastics.
The remaining fraction is instead sent to composting plants that usually operate with much shorter times than those necessary to guarantee compostability. According to Greenpeace this is due to the not always adequate plant engineering, but also to the evident shift between the certifications on compostability and the real conditions present in the plants.
Also according to Greenpeace, the results of the survey cast even more doubts on the work of Italy which for years has encouraged the replacement of plastics fossils with those compostableleaving the logic of the single use whose impacts are increasingly devastating.
The answer of Assobioplastica and Biorepack
The replication of Assobioplastica and Biorepack, the main players in the industrial and recycling chain, was not long in coming. In fact, their press release was published in the main national newspapers in defense of their work and to refute the investigation by Greenpeace Italy, judged “partial and superficial“. This is because there was no involvement of the key players in the industrial supply chain and in the recycling of bioplastics, namely Assobioplastics and Biorepack and the representative organization of organic recycling plants, the CIC-Italian Consortium of composters.
As can be read in their press release, Assobioplastica and Biorepack responded point by point to the NGO’s investigation and concluded by arguing that “rather than making a crusade against bioplastics, let’s take care of understanding what really bothers compost and the processes to produce it and let’s work to solve any critical issues that exist in the plants, caused by the presence of non-compostable materials in the wet waste”.
Greenpeace Italia’s reply
The environmental association immediately replied and wanted to clarify how its investigation is based on the testimonies of academic personalities who collaborate with prestigious Italian universitiesof technical professionalism of the sector and of the laboratories involved in the issuance of the certifications on compostability.
In their joint press release, Assobioplastici and Biorepack accused Greenpeace Italia for not mentioning the issue bags. On this issue, the environmental association replied that from what emerges from the investigation, the shoppers are not among the artifacts with degradation problems in the plants; problem that, on the basis of the testimonies collected, affects rigid products and packaging. The environmental organization recognizes the goodness of the law on shoppers, precisely because it does not provide for one-to-one replacement. On the contrary, with the derogations and exemptions included in the transposition of the European directive on disposable plastics (SUP) for banned products (stovigliame), Greenpeace sees a real risk deriving from the simple and massive replacement of materials. These are the same perplexities̀ shared by Europe in the detailed opinion sent to our government in recent months and which exposes Italy to the risk of an infringement procedure.
At the conclusion of his reply, Greenpeace Italy specified that the real heart of the matter is the disproportionate use of disposables, regardless of the type of materialand this is the model to be opposed in order to bring current production models back into the tracks of sustainabilitỳ, while at the same time favoring the use of durable, washable and reusable options in full compliance with Community guidelines and the European hierarchy.
