Single Use Plastic Directive must exclude compostable items from ban, argues Italian researcher
10 Aug 2023 --- An opinion paper published in Environmental Impact Assessment Review urges that policymakers should not be discouraged by the disadvantages of bioplastics. The author says industry leaders should promote bioplastics as they are less hazardous than conventional plastics due to enhanced biodegradability credentials.
Mirko Cucina, the study author and researcher at the National Research Council of Italy, concedes that “all that glitters is not gold,” and bioplastics have their share of limits and drawbacks, leading to doubts about their effectiveness in fighting plastic pollution.
The paper titled “The lesser of two evils: Enhancing biodegradable bioplastics use to fight plastic pollution requires policymakers interventions in Europe” summarizes the current limitations of bioplastics and “for the first time” describes how it has impacted policy decisions in Europe in the past few years.
The research used a simplified ecologic risk assessment analysis to compare bioplastics and conventional plastics. Based on the results obtained, some possible ways to enhance bioplastics usage and fight plastics pollution were highlighted.
“The reputation of bioplastics has taken a serious hit due to their inclusion in the Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD). The SUPD makes no distinction between conventional and bio-based plastics and biodegradable and compostable bioplastics,” Cucina says in the study.
“The EU Commission states that biodegradable/compostable plastics and bio-based plastics are deemed plastic and hence subject to the SUPD. Due to the inclusion of biodegradable and compostable bioplastics in the directive’s purview, the SUPD has had an impact on the bioplastics industry in a similar way to how it has on the entire plastics industry.”
Image credit: Mirko Cucina.
“Lesser of two evils”
After carrying out the ecological risk assessment, Cucina argues that the intrinsic biodegradability of bioplastics can potentially outweigh its identified risks. Therefore, he posits that despite their limits, bioplastics are “unquestionably the lesser of two evils with respect to plastics.”
“The next steps to favor bioplastics’ spread and fight plastics pollution are to increase their diffusion, favor their correct disposal and end-of-life management, and encourage scientific research to introduce easy biodegradable bioplastics.”
“The SUPD should be revised to exclude biodegradable, compostable bioplastics from the banned items. In this sense, the directive revision 2027 needs to include an assessment of the scientific and technical progress concerning standards for biodegradability in the environment applicable to single-use plastic products and confirm the ban only for plastic and non-biodegradable items.”
Furthermore, the paper states that to increase bioplastics’ circularity, policymakers must favor bioplastics’ collection within biowaste and the recovery of biogas through biowastes’ anaerobic digestion (AD).
Prioritizing collection would also help reach the objectives of the EU Circular Economy Strategy, argues Cucina. “Recycling biowastes will be key to meeting the EU target to recycle 65% of municipal waste by 2035. To provide plastic-free biowastes for the AD and composting processes, precise guidelines on labeling compostable and biodegradable bioplastics are required.”
In conclusion, Cucina, through his paper, asks policymakers in Europe “to step forward and use scientific principles to revise the SUPD 2019/904, sorted collection and recycling targets, and European Regulation on Fertilizers 2019/1009 to enhance bioplastics spread and effectively fight plastic pollution.”
By Radhika Sikaria
