Compostable Plastics

Abstract: The book deals with an environmentally important family of polymers designed to be disposed of in industrial and municipal compost facilities after their useful life. These compostable plastics undergo degradation and leave no visible, distinguishable or toxic residue. Environmental concerns and legislative measures taken in different regions of the world make composting an increasingly attractive route for the disposal of redundant polymers. This book provides up-to-date results and information about compostable polymer materials in a coherent and comprehensive manner. It covers the entire spectrum of preparation, properties, degradation, and environmental issues. The emphasis is on recent studies concerning compostability and ecotoxicological assessment of polymer materials--important issues from the ecological point of view. Moreover, the thermal behavior of compostable polymers is described. Their price evolution over the past decade, an estimation of the market and future perspectives are presented. - Focus on the composting process, compostability standards, compost quality and composting studies - Coherent and uniformly presented information about methods of preparation; properties, processing and applications - Up-to-date information on ecotoxicity testing and studies of polymers - Overview of thermal stability and thermal degradation process of compostable polymer materials - Presents future perspectives of compostable polymers, including evolution of price during last decade - Information about waste management evolution in Europe, USA and Asia (China) with emphasis on composting during the last decade

Abstract: The critical review of norms and standards and corresponding tests to determine the compostability of biodegradable plastics, possibly applicable also to biodegradable agricultural plastics, shows that many norms concerning testing and labelling of compostable plastics have been established at the international level. Some of them are about plastic materials, some others are about products like packaging. The media and conditions of testing cover mainly the conditions designed for industrial composting facilities, and only a few concern home composting conditions. Considering that the end of life management of biodegradable agricultural plastic products will be done at the farm to reduce the management of the waste and also its cost, only a few of these norms are considered to be suitable for adaptation to cover also biodegradable agricultural plastic products. The biodegradability validation criteria under composting conditions, such as the threshold percentage of biodegradation and disintegration, the time and temperature, and the ecotoxicity, are presented for the main norms and standard testing methods. Based on these different norms and their content, a list of specs and technical requirements that could be adapted to meet farm composting conditions for agricultural compostable plastics is proposed. These requirements may be used as criteria for the establishment of a new integrative norm for agricultural compostable plastics.