BioSinn – products for which bio­de­grad­a­tion makes sense!

These and fur­ther ques­tions are going to be answered with­in the pro­ject ​“BioSinn – products for which bio­de­grad­a­tion makes sense”. Togeth­er with the uni­ver­sity of Stuttgart’s depart­ment Insti­tut für Kun­st­stoff­tech­nik (Insti­tute for Plastics Tech­no­logy) nova-Insti­tute is invest­ig­at­ing which plastic products, even when used cor­rectly, often remain in the envir­on­ment or nature and thus can­not be col­lec­ted for recyc­ling or thermal use. For such applic­a­tions, bio­de­grad­a­tion can be a viable end-of-life option. Examples of such products are mater­i­als used in agri­cul­ture and forestry or con­sumer products such as lawn trim­mer cords or fire­works. The res­ult of the pro­ject will be a guide for decision makers in industry and polit­ics includ­ing 25 product pro­files of the most rel­ev­ant applic­a­tions. For each product it will be explained to what extent bio­de­grad­a­tion is a feas­able option and what sub­sti­tu­tions are avail­able for a more sus­tain­able use of plastics. The pro­ject also aims to show the poten­tial for bio­de­grad­able plastics, which has often been over­looked up to now because pub­lic debate is largely focused on pack­aging. These can usu­ally be col­lec­ted and recyl­ed. BioSinn is there­fore con­cen­trat­ing pre­cisely on those applic­a­tions in which col­lec­tion is not or hardly pos­sible in prac­tice. The pro­ject will be accom­pan­ied by experts, which will help to identi­fy suit­able applic­a­tions and dis­cuss the sub­sti­tu­tion by bio­de­grad­able mater­i­als. Dur­a­tion of the pro­ject is one year (Novem­ber 2019 until Octo­ber 2020, the experts are involved via tele­phone calls and two work­shops. In Feb­ru­ary 2020 the 1^st BioSinn expert work­shop took place in Cologne to define a list of products for which bio­de­grad­a­tion makes sense as an end-of-life option. In the fol­low-up event on 11 May 2020, the list of the remain­ing 25 products will be dis­cussed in detail to assess tech­nic­al and mar­ket poten­tials, polit­ic­al frame­work con­di­tions and waste man­age­ment. The work­shop will take place as a side event of the 13^th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Bio-Based Mater­i­als. For more inform­a­tion and regis­tra­tion please vis­it our pro­ject web­site: www​.nova​-insti​tute​.eu/​b​i​o​s​i​n​n​/​r​e​g​i​s​t​r​ation Source: nova Insti­tut, Pressemit­teilung, 03.02.2020