Articles

There are hundreds of articles on the subject of bio-plastics. Below are some of the articles that give an insight into the benefits of bio-plastics and our PLA Bottles. Information on the environmental footprint of polylactic acid (PLA), compostability of bioplastics etcetera.
We believe in bio-plastic compostable bottles. That’s why we only use bio-plastics plant-based bottles for our water, milk, juice.

The fate of (compostable) plastic products in a full scale industrial organic waste treatment facility.

For several years now, there has been debate between the (organic) waste treatment companies,
organised in the Vereniging Afvalbedrijven (VA) and the companies producing compostable plastics,
organised in Holland Bioplastics (HB) about the acceptance of compostable (packaging) products in
source separated municipal organic waste (GFT). In this debate it is brought forward that it is still
unclear whether the disintegration rate of compostable products (i.e. certified according to the current
standard EN 13432) would be sufficient to be compatible with the current GFT treatment practice in
the Netherlands. This is questioned because the current waste treatment practice has focussed more
and more on high throughput of GFT and corresponding short composting cycles (low residence
times).

Exploration of sorting and recycling bioplastic PLA (Dutch)

Bioplastics fit well in a circular economy, especially if they are recycled as much as possible at the end of their life, as described by CE Delft in the report “Biobased plastics in a circular economy”.

Some bioplastics, such as bio-PET and bio-PE, are currently already partially recycled. They are also sorted out from the plastic consumer waste for recycling. The bioplastic PLA (polylactic acid), which is the third bioplastic used by volume as packaging material, is not yet sorted for recycling. This study explored whether this is possible and what the costs, benefits and environmental benefits would be.

PLA sorting for recycling. Experiments performed at the National Test Centre Circular Plastics (NTCP)

Bioplastic, if produced sustainably, can contribute to the transition to a circular economy, especially when these plastics are recycled as much as possible. BioPE and BioPET are automatically sorted and recycled together with fossil PE and PET in the current recycling system for plastic packaging. After bio-PE and bio-PET, PLA (polylactic acid) is the third bioplastic on the market in volume. PLA is a bioplastic that can be used for the production of a variety of packaging, for example, meat trays and packaging for vegetables and fruit. In the current recycling system for consumer packaging waste in the Netherlands and other countries, PLA is not sorted out and recycled automatically.
It was concluded in a previous study by CE Delft, (2019) that, in theory, sorting out PLA packaging waste in plastic sorting installations and mechanical or chemical recycling of the sorted out PLA can be interesting, both from an economic and an environmental perspective. CE Delft estimated that the climate impact of the mechanical or chemical recycling of PLA is lower than of conventional processing routes like composting or combustion (CE Delft, 2019). The share of PLA in the mix of packaging has to increase to 1 to 5% to make the sorting of PLA economically feasible for industrial sorting installations (CE Delft, 2019).

Closed loop

We distribute our compostable bottles of water only within “closed-loop” venues, whereby used containers are collected on-site and undergo proper end-of-life processing. Our goal is to get 90% of the PLA bottles back after use, 90% of the time. Collecting the bottles and sending them to the right end of life option is our goal. We, therefore, look only at closed loop locations for our products.

Biodegradable water bottles for sport event

hotel - resort selling biodegradable bottles

biodegradable water bottles for an airport

Life cycle assessment of beverage bottles

The article presents the sources of greenhouse gas emissions from the food industry. An LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) analysis was carried out that identifies potential environmental burdens for the bottle forming process. The scope of work included selected stages of shaping bottles made of two types of PET and PLA polymer materials. The aim of the work was to demonstrate the impact of bottle production on the condition of the natural environment and to indicate the factors determining these influences.

Documentation for Greenhouse Gas Emission and Energy Factors Used in the Waste Reduction Model

These documents provide background documentation for the greenhouse gas, energy and economic factors in EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM). The WARM documentation chapters are grouped into several files based on chapter topic:

User’s Guide WARM version 15 – provides an overview for users who may be new to the tool or need some basic knowledge about downloading and modeling scenarios in WARM version 15.
User’s Guide WARM version 15 Excel – provides an overview for users of the Excel-based tool for WARM version 15. This guide is the same as the guide found on the first sheet of the WARM Excel tool.

Different plants and their annual carbohydrate yield per hectare.
We use sugar cane for our PLA compostable bottles.

Drawing of the difference on CO2 footprint per ton of produced polymer. Shown that PLA (bottles) have a much lowest outcome than all of the fossil polymers.

PHA has a lot of different end of life solutions. It will compost in the earth (Home compostable) and in the sea/water.

All the different end of life solutions for PLA compostable bottles and the different CO2 emission levels.

Sustainable plastics: A comparison of full bio-based biodegradable plastics and fully fossil-based non-biodegradable plastic.

The aim of this thesis was to give more insight in the environmental impacts of plastic. Two plastic types -the fossil-based non-biodegradable plastic LDPE and the bio-based biodegradable plastic PLA- have been compared to each other in order to gain a level of sustainability. The Netherlands agreed to strive for … read more

Influences of bioplastic polylactic acid on near-infrared-based sorting of conventional plastic

With their increasing market share, more bioplastics will end in conventional post-consumer plastic waste streams. Although part of bioplastics is biodegradable and could be biologically decomposed, mechanical recycling achieves higher ecological benefits mainly because of its low pollution risk and the reduction in requirement for virgin feedstock. In this study, the classification of lightweight packaging waste with inflow of bioplastics, more specifically polylactic acid (PLA), was analysed with near-infrared spectroscopy to evaluate the influence of bioplastics on sorting processes of conventional plastics. Besides which, the sortability of PLA was determined through investigating the physical and the spectroscopic characteristics of both non-degraded and degraded PLA. HPP tests that we have done with our compostable bottles came out wonderful.