Case For Support - Compostable plastics: unlocking existing barriers to systems change

In 2018 the UK Plastics Pact set a target to make all plastic packaging 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable, and to eliminate all unnecessary single-use packaging by 2025. Including compostable plastics in the target was important for two reasons: firstly, there are some items such as food packaging, wipes, tea bags, coffee pods, sachets, that being highly food contaminated are not to suited to recycling or reuse; secondly, food waste is of major environmental importance and compostable liners play an important role in the route out of the home (government target of all UK households by 2023). \

But there is a fundamental problem. The compostables sector is the "wild west" of plastic packaging not just in the UK but also internationally. The materials are largely unregulated and the claims made of environmental credentials are often oversold to the public. Our citizen science research shows that 84% of UK households taking part reported that they are more likely to choose products that are marked as "biodegradable" or "compostable" but they are confused about how to dispose of them. Due to their popularity with the public and brands, the material is starting to displace recyclable plastics such as PET. Plastics Europe estimate the global market for biodegradable plastics is set to grow to 1.3 million tonnes in by 2023 but it could be much greater if compostable drinks bottle, crisp packets and chocolate wrappers start to be produced. The displacement of reusable or recycling products is not the only problem, contamination of other waste streams is another: compostable plastics are currently incompatible with most food waste processing systems. Thus it is it vital to design a workable and sustainable system for compostable tea bags, wipes, caddy liners, food contaminated to-go packaging, ect. The current problems are as follows:

1. Compostable plastics are currently unregulated; while there are certification standards that can be adopted voluntarily, these do not guarantee environmental protection.
2. There is no dedicated UK-wide collection and processing facilities for compostable plastics, without which their environmental impact is high.
3. There is currently no working technical solution to the automatic separation and sorting of compostable plastics, thus they are a growing contaminant in the plastics recycling and food waste collection systems.
4. There is widespread confusion about what they are and how to dispose of them especially in the case of home compostable plastics.
5. There is a growing risk that the confusion around compostable products (and a mistaken belief that they will biodegrade in any conditions) may lead to increased environmental pollution especially in the case of drinks bottles exported to other countries with no waste collection infrastructure.

We have co-created this research programme through a series of meetings with industry partners who have agreed to be part of the industry consortium Veolia, Paper Round, Deliveroo, Vegware, Nemi Teas, BBIA, REA, Xampla, Recycleye, Mamabamboo, Anerotech, Declan Mee Ltd and Closed Loop Partners. The agreed aim of this project is to unlock the barriers to a sustainable system for the use of compostable plastics in the UK and worldwide.

In this project we will synthesise the results from our environmental analysis of different compostable products with our work on labelling and automatic detection to consider how the disposal and industrial composting of these products could create a sustainable system. Specifically we will ask what UK waste processing system needs to be in place for such products to be sustainable, how such a system might operate, and how it could be economically viable. We place special emphasis on assessing the feasibility of using a UK food waste collection system as the means to harvest compostable plastics from domestic households.