Oxo-biodegradable plastics

Plastic bags and other products, e.g. agricultural mulching films, made with polyethylene (PE) are appearing on the market with the claim of being “degradable”, “oxo-degradable” or “oxo-fragmentable”, “oxo-biodegradable”, and sometimes even “compostable.”

This claim, however, does not comprise the same features as biodegradablity!

The underlying technology of oxo-degradability or oxo-fragmentation is based on special additives, which, if incorporated into standard resins, are purported to accelerate the degradation of the film products. This technology and the products are not new, and many valid doubts have been expressed as to whether these products deliver what they promise.

The manner of advertising these products has been examined in two lawsuits. In both cases the sentence was that producers/marketers made false claims with respect to biodegradability or compostability. Background information can be found in the section publications.

European Bioplastics considers the use of terms such as biodegradable and compostable without reference to acknowledged standards as misleading, and as such, not reproducible and verifiable.