Most Bioplastics are biodegradable

Biodegradability is however not an abstract concept and depends on many factors. The most important is the chemical “make-up” of a polymer that primarely makes a product made from bioplastics readily biodegradable or chemically inert.

A biodegrable polymer will degrade in certain circumstances and these are influenced by its environmental factors. One can imagine that a bioplastics will degrade more rapidly in fresh moisty soil that is filled with micro-organisms, then in comparence in a household environment somewhere in a closet.

Biodegration of organic mass or aerobic decompostion in controlled conditions is called composting. In this way products made from bioplastics can be covernted in to compost in a couple of weeks, leaving nothing more than water, CO2 and bio-mass.

Bioplastics and products made from Bioplastics that are suitable for composting have to be certified according to several standards, depending on national legislation. For example in Europe the Standard EN13432 applies, whereas in the USA the ASTM  6400 standard is the regulatory framework for biodegradability of bioplastics.

These standars are necessary to determine whether a product made from bioplastics will degrade in a certain amount of time under composting conditions and are free from dangerous substances like heavy metals or other non-degradable ingredients.

Many bioplastics grades and intermediates like film or sheet have been approved according to these standards. Even on a product level these certifications have great value.

Bio-Lite.eu strives to comply with these standards and developes its material to meet the basis conditions in order to comply with biodegradability and composting standars.
The certification trajectory of a product made from bioplastics is a time consuming and often difficult procedure. Therefore Bio-Lite.eu will be of service if a certification is required, in terms of applying and communicating the relevant information to the various institutes, that conduct the research according to the standards.