The Food Service online magazine Footprint has highlighted the issue of plastics used in agriculture. As readers will know we have long campaigned with DEFRA to introduce legislation implementing obligatory EPR for recyclable plastics used in farming and the substitution of non-biodegradable soil mulch with certified biodegradable films that are now available. As usual, DEFRA officials choose not to listen and our soils are more polluted by the day.

The Higginson media agency this week reported that tiny particles of plastic have been detected in the brains of mice just two hours after ingestion, a finding that could have significant implications for human health. The team of researchers from Austria, the US, Hungary, and the Netherlands also uncovered the mechanism by which nanoplastics breach the blood-brain barrier, an important defence against pathogens and toxins.

On 30 March the Government published its new report on industrial biotechnology and its potential to grow the UK economy. There are a lot of good references in this to current UK industrial progress including on enzymes, fine chemicals, protein etc, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. However, all the examples are still very small because new technologies need market access to grow, and this requires Government mandates or fiscal policies (just as we have done with renewable energies and electric car, for example). Those seem such a long time away. Anyway, let’s applaud what we’ve got so far.

An analytical critique of circular economy policies has been published in the Journal of Ecological Economics. The findings include that ‘GDP growth increases resource extraction four times more than the savings achieved by CE initiatives’. We are still a long way away from any meaningful implementation of truly circular policies, globally and also nationally.

The European Commission published its position on green claims with the aim of reducing or avoiding greenwashing. An essential read for everyone facing consumers, but not only. Here in the UK BBIA members are preparing guidelines for the CMA on which claims can be considered justifiable for compostable/biodegradable packaging used in FMCG applications.

The Scottish Science and Advisory Council has published in report on the Circular Economy to which BBIA contributed. You can find the 12-page document here.

BBIA member OCEANIUM has just published its 2022 Impact Report which is well worth a read. Oceanium uses kelp to produce polymers.

Recommended reading to anyone who wishes to understand the landscape for the standards related to biodegradable plastics, the CEN (with BSI in the UK) has issued its document ‘Biodegradable plastics: Status of standardization and new prospect’ which can be purchased from the BSI website. It lays out all the existing standards around biodegradable plastics.

The Circular Bioeconomy Joint Undertaking of the European Commission has recently published its review of the investments made in promoting the growth of the bioeconomy in the EU since 2014. There are many success stories, all underlining the rapid technological change going on as well as the industrial growth in course.