Making ordinary plastics biodegradable

Because thousands of tons of plastic waste are getting into the environment every day, and will remain there for decades. There is nowhere in the world where it possible to collect every piece of plastic for recycling or any other form of responsible disposal. Oxo-Biodegradable Plastics has been specifically tested and found biodegradable in land & sea.

Oxo-biodegradable plastic is ordinary plastic to which a catalyst has been added during the manufacturing process. The resulting plastic is then made into products like shopping bags, roll films,  and other short-life/single-use items. The big difference between oxo-biodegradable and ordinary plastic is that if oxo-biodegradable plastic escapes collection and ends up in the open environment as litter, it will degrade and biodegrade much more quickly than ordinary plastic. 

Oxo-biodegradable plastic  is the lowest cost alternative to ordinary plastics and are best suited to low value plastics which are either unsuitable or uneconomic for recycling. Accordingly this should not inhibit innovation for more expensive alternatives aimed at replacing higher value plastics. 

There is a lot of confusion in the terminology relating to degradable plastics, and it is necessary to bring clarity to this area. 

“Oxo-degradation” is defined by CEN (the European Standards authority) in TR15351 as “degradation identified as resulting from oxidative cleavage of macromolecules.” This describes ordinary plastics, which abiotically degrade in the open environment, but do not become biodegradable except over a very long period of time. “Oxo-biodegradation" is defined by CEN as “degradation resulting from oxidative and cell-mediated phenomena, either simultaneously or successively”. This describes OBP. 

In the presence of sunlight, the catalyst accelerates the natural oxidation process and reduces the molecular weight of the polymer at a much faster rate, to the point where it is no longer a plastic and can be bio-assimilated by bacteria and fungi in the natural environment. The process continues until the material has biodegraded to nothing more than CO2, water, and biomass. It does not leave fragments of petro-polymers in the soil, and it does not contain heavy metals. It is tested according to US Standard ASTM D6954 & British BS 8472:2011 by independent laboratories for degradation, biodegradation, non-toxicity and absence of metals in excess of the limits prescribed by Art 11 of the EU Packaging Waste Directive. 

Oxo-biodegradable plastic does just what it says, the clue is in the name – It is called oxo-biodegradable plastic because it is biodegradable. 

Oxo-biodegradable plastic degrades, and then biodegrades in the open environment in the same way as nature’s wastes. If oxo-biodegradable plastic merely fragmented without biodegrading, CEN (European Committee for Standardization) would not have defined oxo-biodegradability as “degradation resulting from oxidative and cell-mediated phenomena, either simultaneously or successively” and the American, British standards organisation's would not have included tests for biodegradability in ASTM D6954, BS8472.

Yes, but if the plastic is not collected it cannot of course be recycled, so it needs to degrade instead of accumulating in the environment. However, one of the benefits of oxo-biodegradable plastic is that it can be recycled as part of a normal plastic waste stream.

Yes! There are no heavy metals used in oxo-biodegradable by ReverteTM technology, this has been independently certified.

Yes! ReverteTM was formulated with the reduction of litter in mind, the material commences breakdown once film is discarded into the environment and rapidly fragments into biodigestable constituents. At this point the material is no longer a littering hazard. Then if in a suitable environment the material will biodegrade to leave water, biomass and CO2.

Very little, because the additive represents only 1% of the polymer, and because oxo-biodegradable products can be made with the same machines and workforce as ordinary plastic.