1. Bioplastics: contributing to a Circular Economy – an introduction
Hasso von Pogrell, Managing Director | European Bioplastics (EUBP)
SwitchMed Connect, October 2016, Barcelona | Spain
A good morning to everyone, and thank you to the organizers of this event for inviting me to speak at this panel.
My name is Hasso von Pogrell, and I am the Managing Director of European Bioplastics, the European Association representing the industry producing, converting and using bioplastics in Europe.
As I’m not aware of how many of you in the audience actually know what bioplastics are, let me start off with a short introduction into bioplastis, their specific properties, and how they differ from the everyday conventional plastics.

2. BIOPLASTICS European Bioplastics‘ definition of bioplastics are
or both
e.g. starch blends
bio-based e.g. bio-PE
biodegradable
e.g. PBAT
First of all and foremost, bioplastics are not a single kind, but a whole family of materials with varying properties.
According to our definition, the family of bioplastics is roughly divided into three main groups:
- Biobased or partly biobased (non-biodegradable) plastics, which means that they are – at least partially – derived from biomass
- Plastics that are based on fossil resources and are biodegradable, which means that they biodegrade in industrial composting facilities (certified according to the the European Standard EN 13432)
Plastics that are both - biobased and biodegradable
It is important to emphasize that „Biobased“ does not equal „biodegradable“!
Biodegradation does not depend on the resource basis of a material.
There are 100 % biobased plastics that are not biodegradable and there are 100 % fossil based plastics that do biodegrade.
Bioplastics are suitable for use in all products currently using conventional plastics, ranging from packaging to automotive applications.
Besides equal technical performance they offer additional benefits (renewability, biodegradability). 2

3. Bioplastics are biobased, biodegradable or both.
Here is a more schematic view on how bioplastics differ from conventional plastics:
In the lower left-hand corner, you see the family of conventional plastics: they are neither biobased nor biodegradable
In the upper left-hand corner you see those bioplastics that are biobased but not biodegradable. As these are very often chemically identical to their conventional counterparts (e.g. PE and PET), differing only in the raw material used to make them (i.e. biomass as opposed to fossil resources, mostly oil), they are often referred to as so-called drop-in solutions.
In the lower right-hand corner you have those bioplastics that are – just like conventional plastics derived from fossil resources, but that have the capability of biodegrading in a specific environment like industrial composting facilities or, as the case is for biodegradable mulching films, in soil.
And, finally, in the upper right-hand corner, you have those bioplastics that are both, derived from biomass and also biodegradable in industrial composting facilities.
The property of biodegradability plays an important role in some very specific applications, especially those where you have food contact and/or food or biowaste.
In the following slide you will see some applications where biodegradability can make a lot of sense.

4. Biodegradable, compostable bioplastics applications
Packaging Bags Catering Agriculture Consumer
Cellulose Starch blend PLA/Paper PBAT blend PLA
Take, for instance, lightweight shopping bags.
They can have a dual use:
In their first life you use them to carry home your groceries,
In their second life you can use them as waste bags to collect biowaste.
Or, take packaging, especially for fresh foods, or catering products: These are often prone to be contaminated with foodwaste, and, therefore, are predestined to end up in the bio-bin together with the other biowaste.
And finally, as mentioned already: biodegradable mulching films that can be ploughed under in the soil where they, unlike conventional PE mulching films, leave no residues that contaminate the soil.
Starch based PBAT/PLA blend PBAT blend Starch based Starch based

5. Bio-based bioplastics application
Bottles Packaging Bags Technical Automotive
Bio PET Bio PE Bio PE bio PE Bio TPE
Here are just a few examples for biobased plastics which have the same, or sometimes even better, properties than conventional plastics.
As you can see, there are no limits in the applications for biobased plastics; they are suitable for use in all products currently using conventional plastics, ranging from packaging to automotive applications.
Plus, being derived from renewable resources, they reduce our dependability from limited fossil resources while at the same time reducing the carbon footprint of these products.
Bio PE Bio PE Bio PE Cornstarch Bio PA

6. What bioplastics are NOT…
!!!
Oxo-degradable plastics:
Do not meet requirements of industrial/and or home compostability (standards)
Conventional plastics with metal salt additives
Low levels of biodegradability, and only in the initial phase
Enzyme-mediated degradable plastics:
Very little data on biodegradation
Conventional plastics with organic additives
O.W.S. “Benefits and challenges of bio- and oxodegradable plastics – a comparative literature study”, August 2013
Source: Endseurope.com
In connection with biodegradability, you may stumbled across the claim of “oxo- biodegradability”.
These are conventional plastics to which metal salts are added, allegedly making the biodegrade in any kind of environment.
However, these plastics do not biodegrade; the additive merely makes the plastic fragment when exposed to sunlight. These fragments, even though often not visible to the naked eye, persist in nature, making these plastics ever more dangerous, as they can easily end up in the food chain. That is why we refer to them as oxo-fragmentable plastics.
Pretty much the same goes for a newer technology which substitutes metal salts with organic additives – so-called enzyme-mediated degradable plastics.
Also in this case no biodegradation, but only fragmentation of conventional plastics, takes place.
Source:

7. End-of-life options for bioplastics
Bioplastics are suitable for a broad range of waste treatment options:
Prevention through innovative materials
Mechnical recycling in existing recycling streams (bio-PE or bio-PET) or separate streams for PLA (when economically feasible)
Organic recycling of certified compostable (EN ) products in industrial composting plants
Chemical recycling / feedstock recovery possible for some polymers, e.g. PLA, to hydrolyse back into constituting monomers
Energy recovery produces renewable energy
Regional infrastructure determines most effective and applicable recovery route
In one of my recent slides I have already touched upon the fact that bioplastics are suitable for a broad range of end-of-life options. But, given the importance of how to deal with plastic at the end of their useful life, I would like to dwell on this issue for another moment or two:
The overwhelming part of the volumes of bioplastics produced today already is being recycled alongside their conventional counterparts where separate recycling streams for certain material types exist (e.g. biobased PE in the PE-stream or biobased PET in the PET stream).
Compostability is an add-on property of certain types of bioplastics that offers additional waste treatment options at the end of a product’s life.
Biodegradable products, such as compostable biowaste bags, food packaging, or cutlery can easily be treated together with organic waste in industrial composting plants and are thus diverted from landfills and turned into valuable compost.
This way, bioplastics can contribute to higher recycling quotas in the EU, a more efficient waste management.
In some cases, where recycling proves to be no (economically) viable option, energy recovery may prove to be the second-best solution – it certainly beats landfilling by miles!
In case of biobased plastics, the energy recovered can be seen as renewable energy.
At the end of the day, the best end of life option depends quite a bit on the existing regional waste infrastructure. 7

8. Today‘s plastics economy
In this slide, taken from a recent report by the Ellen McArthur Foundadtion, I would like to draw your attention to the two arrows on the lower right-hand side, indicating the amount of plastics today being landfilled or leaking into the environment.
As you can see, the calculation is thus, that more than 70% of all plastics are not recycled or recovered (e.g. through incineration with energy recovery). That means that an unbelievable high amount of plastic waste is prone to end up in the environment, in one way or another.
This leads to the well known problem of (marine) litter, to which we must find adequate solutions, lest we want to end up suffocating on plastic waste. 8

9. Problem: (marine) litter
Sources:
Sea-based: Shipping and fishing activities
Land-based: ineffectively managed landfills, public littering, and the careless disposal of waste in the environment
Remedies:
Improve waste management on land to prevent plastics from entering the environment / oceans in the first place.
Phase out landfilling altogether
Install separate (bio-)waste collection
Biodegradable plastics should not be considered as a solution to the problem of (marine) litter. Littering should never be promoted or accepted for any kind of waste, neither on land nor at sea, including all varieties of plastics

10. 11th EUBP Conference – Berlin, 29/30 November 2016
Update im Januar
More information on

11. Contact European Bioplastics e.V.
Marienstr , D Berlin (Mitte)
Phone. +49 (0)
Fax +49 (0)