bioplasticsMAGAZINE_0703

Article contributed by Gaëlle Janssens,
Prevention & R&D Manager
FOST Plus, Brussels, Belgium
Opinion
Careful
use of terms
Gaëlle Janssens
like “Biodegradable
and compostable”
In the world of packaging, bioplastics are one of
the most exiting innovations. The consumers seem
motivated for “greener“ shopping and like the idea
of biopackaging… . But they are very confused: in
a recent consumer survey in Belgium, to the question
“what is a biopackaging?”, the majority would answer
“a packaging that is better for the environment”. A quite
broad concept. When prompted further, most consumers
(62%) are driven by motivations related to renewable
resources– reduce CO 2
emissions, promote local agriculture
and use renewable resources.
But even though it may have nothing to do with it, the
word used by the consumers, as well as the by industry,
to name a renewable resource based packaging is ‘biodegradable
packaging’.
The big problem with the word biodegradable is that
it may lead to problems of litter: 27% of the consumers
agree that “you can throw away biodegradable packaging
into the environment and it will disappear without
any human help”. It is interesting to note that, to avoid
this problem, Belgian law will forbid the use of the term
‘biodegradable’ on packaging. An interesting suggestion
for the rest of Europe or even for all of the countries
in the world?
Another problem is that a ‘biodegradable’ packaging
supposes an end-of-life treatment, which is, for most
of the people, obviously compost. This is not a problem
for home compostable packaging, except for the
understanding of the logo: for 73% of the consumers,
a ‘compostable’ logo means they may dispose of the
packaging in their garden compost… and they will still
see it 2 years later! Let’s change the logo to avoid confusion
and use ‘compostable’ only for ‘home compostable’
and ‘industrially compostable’ for packaging that needs
a high degradation temperature, moisture and certain
microorganisms.
Regarding industrially compostable packaging, only
very few consumers worldwide have access to organic
waste collection and, when they do have access, packaging
is generally not welcome (risk of pollution with conventional
plastic and strict norms). As green consumers
watch very closely the claims of green marketing, the
risk of negative publicity is very high if ‘compostable’ is
used without any composting solution. By the way, the
composting property may be very interesting in some industrial
applications, where communication to the consumer
is not needed – tomato clips, organic waste from
distributors, medical ties,…
The option of incineration is considered by more and
more producers as the most ecological solution as it
produces energy, but the infrastructure has to exist locally.
Landfill doesn’t meet the composting condition in
terms of oxygen, humidity and micro-organisms.
As we can see, the end-of-life treatment is certainly
not so obvious! So, as long as no industrial composting
solution exists for the majority of citizens, and as long
as compost is not proved to be the best local end-of-life
treatment for packaging, we should communicate about
compostability only in the case of home compostable
packaging and concentrate communication on renewable
resources, which is tomorrow’s biggest issue.
Therefore, the industry should develop a new, recognized
certification and an easily marketable name.
www.fostplus.be
bioplastics MAGAZINE [03/07] Vol. 2 39