EU decision to phase out plastic bags strengthens com­postable bags

The new legis­la­tion obliges EU Mem­ber States to intro­duce meas­ures that reduce the use of light­weight plastic bags by almost 50 per­cent by the end of 2019 and by 80 per­cent by the end of 2025 com­pared to 2010. ​“We highly appre­ci­ate the strong envir­on­ment­al com­mit­ment of the European insti­tu­tions demon­strated by these ambi­tious tar­gets. The new legis­la­tion reaf­firms the poten­tial of bio­de­grad­able and com­postable shop­ping bags to tackle the chal­lenges of plastic bag con­sump­tion and lead to a more resource effi­cient Europe,” says François de Bie, Chair­man of European Bioplastics. Com­postable plastic bags have import­ant eco­lo­gic­al advant­ages, enhance the sep­ar­ate col­lec­tion of biowaste, and thereby divert it from land­fill. Com­postable bags should be clearly marked and labelled so con­sumers can eas­ily identi­fy them as suit­able for organ­ic waste col­lec­tion, which keeps these bags out of tra­di­tion­al plastic waste streams. Against this back­ground, European Bioplastics wel­comes the endorse­ment of EN 13432 in the PPWD as the stand­ard to cer­ti­fy bio­de­grad­a­tion, and the com­mit­ment to fur­ther devel­op EU-wide stand­ard­isa­tion of com­posta­bil­ity and coher­ent labelling. The ​‘Seed­ling’ is an inter­na­tion­ally recog­nized com­posta­bil­ity label that is con­nec­ted to the EN 13432/EN 14995 stand­ards and the cer­ti­fic­a­tion pro­cess man­aged by the inde­pend­ent insti­tu­tions DIN CERTCO and Vinçotte. ​“For the advant­ages of com­postable bags to take full effect, clear stand­ards, coher­ent labelling, as well as sep­ar­ate col­lec­tion of biowaste should be pro­moted across Europe”, de Bie con­cludes. Die Auffor­der­ung zur Ein­sendung von Vorträ­gen wird in Kürze ver­öf­fent­licht und Teil­nehmer können sich ab März für die Kon­fer­enz regis­tri­er­en. Source: European Bioplastics e.V.