22 October 2020
If only Plastic Soup Foundation were allowed to wave a magic wand, we knew what to wish for: just give us a completely biodegradable alternative to plastic. Just give us something as versatile as plastic, but without all the negative aspects, something we can simply throw away with the fruit and vegetable waste, something that becomes compost and is not harmful to our health.
That’s why we asked investigative journalist Hans Wetzels to find out for us to what extent the new developments in the field of compostable plastic will bring us any closer to our dream material and one day also to a world without plastic pollution. His research recently appeared in Vrij Nederland under a title that unfortunately is also a spoiler: ‘Why compostable plastic is not (yet) the solution’.
Nobody wants to buy it
By the way, the term ‘biodegradable’ is a bit misleading. Compostable plastic is only biodegradable in special, industrial installations. The idea behind it is that it should be able to be collected and composted together with vegetable, fruit and garden waste. But the reality paints a different picture: the Dutch waste industry wants nothing to do with it.
Wetzel’s journey through the world of compostable plastic takes him past separating machines that can’t tell the difference between compostable and regular plastics, and past waste processors who can’t find anyone who wants to buy their plastic-contaminated compost: ‘People throw chip cards, medicine packaging and even car tires into the fruit and vegetable waste.’
Dinosaurs
The other side, the European bioplastics industry, accuses the waste industry of being stuck in outdated processing methods: ‘It’s an industry full of dinosaurs and the will to change is very small’. Also, the plastics industry is not always transparent about the exact composition of its biodegradable plastic. And consumers often have no idea which plastic is really plastic, which is compostable, and what belongs in which bin.
Shortly before journalist Jeroen Wester of NRC wrote a shocking piece this week about the true face of the Dutch waste processing industry, Wetzels drew an equally disappointing conclusion about compostable plastic. According to him, the debate is at an impasse: ‘Two financially decisive industries, each with their own interests, have dug in and don’t want to move a millimeter’.
A ray of light
Wetzels fortunately ends his quest with a ray of light in the form of researcher Christiaan Bolck of Wageningen University, who sketches the picture of an elephant in the room blocking the wider application of biodegradable plastics: the contamination of the VGF with regular plastics. Bolck: ‘But that doesn’t mean that compostable plastic is nonsense. The real Achilles’ heel is the enormous amount of regular plastic in the GFT.
Plastic Soup Foundation has already published about this Achilles’ heel multiple times. Read for example the article ‘Plastic soup on land: agricultural compost is polluted with plastic‘.
– Elles Tukker, communications manager Plastic Soup Foundation