Biobased and Biodegradation Standards for Polymeric Materials

Biodegradation is an important feature of biodegradable plastics. Two essential components of the biodegradation process are that the material must be a food source for the bacteria in the disposal environment and that the biodegradation must take place within a short time period, typically 6 months. Therefore, biodegradation can occur in an industrial compost environment for biodegradable plastics if they are used as food source for the bacteria in the compost and that they are 

Sustainable Plastics Environmental Assessments of Biobased, Biodegradable, and Recycled Plastics, First Edition. Joseph P. Greene. 

This chapter describes the worldwide biodegradation standards for biodegradable plastics, including starch-based plastics, in common disposal environments, including compost, marine, anaerobic digestion, soil, and landfill. Compost environments include aerobic conditions within hot industrial compost environments. Marine environments include cold aerobic conditions. Landfill disposal environments include aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Anaerobic-digestion environments include hot anaerobic conditions. 

Solid waste disposal environments for plastic materials can include industrial compost, home compost, anaerobic digestion, landfill, litter, and ocean water. Only two disposal environments have both biodegradation standards for test methods and biodegradation performance standards, for example, industrial compost and marine biodegradation environments. Test method standards are available for anaerobic digestion, home compost, and landfill environments. The second necessary performance specification standard for biodegradation performance is not available for anaerobic digestion, home compost, or landfill 

Biodegradation standards are provided in the following sections. The standards are organized based on disposal environment. Thus, the biodegradation standards from different worldwide standards organizations are presented in an industrial compost section, marine environment section, an anaerobic-digestion section, landfill section, and home compost section. 

---