Latest study indicates running effects of biodegradable plastic recycling to waste stream

It was really assumed that the waste management industry will not accept the latest government proposal of exempting biodegradable bags from carrier bag tax of UK because it will ruin the waste stream in process. BPFRG or British Plastics Federation’s Recycling Group is of different view which claims that recycling the biodegradable plastics with traditional plastic products will cause catastrophic effects and also affects PE and PET streams of established recycling.

Of course, tax exemption should be given to those products that have got higher plastic recycling content because normal biodegradable bags are already under the canvas of Irish bag tax legislation.

http://greenchemicalsblog.com/2014/01/22/study-on-compostables-in-recycling/ reports that integrity of recycled plastics will be severely affected if UK government announces tax exemption for the biodegradable bags.

However, plastics such as starch blends, PBAT and PLA that comprise 10% of compostable materials when recycled with conventional plastics have no effects of the ultimate recyclates or recycling waste stream, as per the study of European Bioplatsics. With logos like Seedling, compostable plastics have got their own specific organic recycling streams.

On the other hand, independent studies conducted by Biotec, the Italian National Packaging Consortium and the Institute of Bioplatsics and Biocomposites have shown that latest sorting technologies can easily sort the composites out if compostable plastics terminate in recycling streams.