Behaviour of Biodegradable Mater-BI ZI01U Plastic Layers in a Composting Pilot plant

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union have recently finalized a Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste. This foresees that, no later than five years from the date by which the Directive must be implemented in national law, between 50–65% by weight of the packaging waste should be recovered from the waste stream through recycling, reuse, or incineration with energy recovery. Recycling will cover the 25–15% of the totality of packaging materials contained in packaging waste. Composting is considered as a form of recycling of biodegradable packagings and it will have an important role in the rational management of waste. The definition of the criteria by which a material can be considered as compostable and recycled by composting is, therefore, a topical issue. International organisms such as the ISR/ASTM, CEN, ORCA have been constituted with the aim to define the compostability criteria. The fundamental requirements are: biodegradability, absence of negative effects on the quality of the compost, absence of negative effect on composting process. The first two conditions are determined at laboratory scale following the mineralisation of the test material and analysing the final compost quality. The laboratory data and the effect on the process should be verified in a composting plant.