What does the single-use plastics ban mean for bioplastics? I’m not entirely sure.

We are all concerned about plastic. Plastic in the oceans, on the roadside and in the food chain. Of all the pressing sustainability issues, plastic has been upfront and central for a while now. It’s an easy target, like low-hanging fruit that to me goes hand-in-hand with unbridled throwaway consumerism. The more we shop, eat and drink, the more plastic packaging we consume.

We’ve put plastic bags, straws and take-out coffee cups in the spotlight. If you go shopping with a cotton bag and a reusable coffee cup, you can call yourself a green consumer. Even if you’re buying stuff you don’t need and drinking coffee from the other side of the world. The reusable shopping bag and coffee cups are icons and you can bathe in their green glow. It was only a matter of time before legislators would jump on the bandwagon.

Legislation to address single-use plastics, proposed today by the European Commission, is a great step towards stopping plastic getting where it shouldn’t. But as I headed home thinking about writing this post, the woman in the car in front opened her window and dropped a clear plastic wrapper out of it. In a so-called civilised society. It happens all the time.

Even the most stringent European legislation on single-use plastics cannot deal with the issue of littering. We are spoiled in Belgium with public waste bins, kerbside recycling collection and waste management facilities for everything else. And still, people will throw a plastic wrapper out of the window or leave a beer can in the woods.

The EU’s 33-page legislative proposal on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment claims that plastic makes up 80–85% of marine litter. Of this, single-use plastics are thought to represent about half and fishing gear containing plastics another 27%. The proposed Directive aims to ban single-use plastic cotton buds, cutlery, plates, straws, drink stirrers and balloon sticks unless they are made exclusively from more sustainable materials. I’m feeling a little deprived now because I’m 42 and I’ve never had a balloon on a stick but apparently they are polluting Europe’s beaches in a big way.

Takeaway food containers would need to be reduced but not banned. Single-use drinks containers like coffee cups and drink bottles are not being banned but their caps and lids will have to remain attached to the bottle. This seems to assume that people only throw the lid out and not the cup. Or that a plastic-lined paper cup disintegrates before the lid which may well be the case but wouldn’t this still happen if the lid was attached?

So is this the moment the bioplastics industry has been looking for? Breaking into take-out coffee cups and soda bottles has always been the Holy Grail. The proposal states “This systemic change and material substitution will also promote bio-based alternatives and an innovative bioeconomy…” and the EU continues to invest serious public funding into developing bioplastics.

But here’s the thing. Bio-based and biodegradable plastics are included in the definition of plastics which does not come as a surprise to me. However, I couldn’t find a definition of the “more sustainable materials” which would be allowed to be used for single-use applications. If this definition is not clear then hopefully it will be defined in the next steps of the legislative process, when the European Parliament and Member States get hold of it.

As the concern here is marine litter, I don’t see how bio-based origin alone would be enough to constitute “more sustainable materials” unless they are marine biodegradable.

This could be bad news for bioplastics producers if it results in substitution with other materials.

It also looks like when a future marine biodegradability standard is developed, compliant petro-based biodegradable plastics could be used for single-use plastic products once more. My personal preference in terms of credibility and ease of communicating has always for bioplastics to be biobased not petro-based.

“I believe in more intelligent use of fossil resources, including plastics. Hopefully this legislation will further stimulate the development of biodegradable and marine degradable plastics for use in disposable applications. But we also need to consume and throw away a lot less.”

The proposed Directive complements the January 2018 European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy which aims to make all plastic packaging recyclable by 2030.

The public consultation on the proposed single-use plastics Directive is open until 23 July 2018. I’m hoping to learn more from the bioplastics policy people in the coming days.

Breaking up with oil and talking about the problem of microplastics in the food chain in my 2016 TEDx talk Bioplastics Fantastic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wnsvYkzANk&t=16s.

A few links
European Commission press release
European Commission fact sheet
Additional European Commission documents
Friends of the Earth Europe press release
Rethink Plastic Alliance (group of NGOs) press release
European Greens press release
Seas At Risk report on single-use plastics