Com­pre­hens­ive poster on bio­de­grad­able poly­mers in vari­ous envir­on­ments in a new version

The bio­de­grad­a­tion of a mater­i­al is a pro­cess that depends on the com­plex bio­lo­gic­al con­di­tions at each site. In addi­tion, only a hand­ful of poly­mers have the inher­ent abil­ity to bio­de­grade in dif­fer­ent envir­on­ments. There­fore, spe­cif­ic stand­ards and cer­ti­fic­ates have been developed in recent years to provide a frame­work for declar­ing wheth­er or not a product can bio­de­grade in an envir­on­ment. Sci­entif­ic veri­fic­a­tion and cer­ti­fic­a­tion of the com­mu­nic­a­tion of envir­on­ment­al claims is becom­ing increas­ingly import­ant under the Green Claims Dir­ect­ive. Bio­de­grad­ab­il­ity is one envir­on­ment­al claim that will need to be veri­fied by third party certification.

In order to improve the under­stand­ing of bio­de­grad­a­tion and bio­de­grad­ab­il­ity and their cer­ti­fic­a­tion, a group of experts came togeth­er a few years ago to devel­op a poster show­ing which poly­mers bio­de­grade in which envir­on­ments accord­ing to estab­lished stand­ards and cer­ti­fic­a­tion schemes. This group includes experts from the nova Insti­tute (Ger­many) togeth­er with a num­ber of lead­ing experts from Normec OWS (Bel­gi­um), Hydra Mar­ine Sci­ence (Italy/​Germany), IKT Stut­tgart (Ger­many), Wagen­in­gen Uni­ver­sity & Research (The Neth­er­lands) and in cooper­a­tion with DIN CERTCO (Ger­many) and TÜV AUS­TRIA (Austria/​Belgium). 

The expert group met again this year to dis­cuss the latest sci­entif­ic evid­ence in the field of bio­de­grad­able poly­mers in order to make mean­ing­ful changes to the poster. The gen­er­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion on the poster is only sup­por­ted by tests per­formed in the con­text of cer­ti­fic­a­tion. There­fore, the expert group decided to include the bio­de­grad­ab­il­ity of polycapro­lac­tone (PCL) in addi­tion­al envir­on­ments: soil, fresh­wa­ter, mar­ine and anaer­obic con­di­tions. In addi­tion, a new cer­ti­fic­a­tion for mar­ine bio­de­grad­ab­il­ity has been pub­lished by DIN CERTCO in 2023, based on ISO 22403, the stand­ard that provides require­ments for mar­ine bio­de­grad­ab­il­ity, and is now men­tioned on the poster. A new poster design and a more pre­cise defin­i­tion of bio­de­grad­a­tion and bio­de­grad­ab­il­ity com­plete the update for this year. 

The poster is freely avail­able at https://​renew​able​-car​bon​.eu/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​p​r​o​d​u​c​t​/​b​i​o​d​e​g​r​a​d​a​b​l​e​-​p​o​l​y​m​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​v​a​r​i​o​u​s​-​e​n​v​i​r​o​n​m​e​n​t​s​-​a​c​c​o​r​d​i​n​g​-​t​o​-​e​s​t​a​b​l​i​s​h​e​d​-​s​t​a​n​d​a​r​d​s​-​a​n​d​-​c​e​r​t​i​f​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​-​s​c​h​emes/ in PNG format and https://​renew​able​-car​bon​.eu/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​p​r​o​d​u​c​t​/​b​i​o​d​e​g​r​a​d​a​b​l​e​-​p​o​l​y​m​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​v​a​r​i​o​u​s​-​e​n​v​i​r​o​n​m​e​n​t​s​-​a​c​c​o​r​d​i​n​g​-​t​o​-​e​s​t​a​b​l​i​s​h​e​d​-​s​t​a​n​d​a​r​d​s​-​a​n​d​-​c​e​r​t​i​f​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​-​s​c​h​e​m​e​s​-​g​r​a​p​h​i​c​-​c​u​r​r​e​n​t​-​v​e​r​sion/ in PDF format. 

The full team of experts will keep abreast of the latest sci­entif­ic pub­lic­a­tions and cer­ti­fic­a­tions in the field of bio­de­grad­able poly­mers and will con­tin­ue to keep this poster up to date.