Biodegradable plastics offer innovative solutions to improve the quality of recycling, facilitating the most efficient means of sorting waste. This has been confirmed by a new study on the effects of biodegradable plastics in plastic recycling streams in Italy, where all single-use bags must be compostable since 2011.

Analyzing the quality of recycled plastics from 19 waste sorting and recycling plants across the country, it was found that compostable plastics make up only 0.85% of the plastic input. Similar studies conducted by the University of Wageningen show no negative effects on the properties of recycled plastics containing starch film and recycled PLA.

Biodegradable plastics are designed to be treated in industrial recycling plants. If they enter mechanical recycling streams from being disposed of incorrectly, they can be easily classified using sorting technologies such as near infrared, as recent tests by the German research institute Knoten Weimar showed.

“The results of these studies carried out under real conditions in recycling plants confirm that investments in modernizing the waste management and lifting infrastructure separately is necessary to improve the quality and quantity of plastics recycling” said Hasso von Pogrell, managing director of European Bioplastics.