Policy and reports

This document sets out the REA’s policy on bags and liners suitable for separately collecting particular biodegradable waste types from the particular source types specified in our policy below, in England from 2023 onwards.
Its implementation should coincide with the introduction of mandatory separate food waste collections in England and whatever government decides on rules for co-collecting food and plant wastes and corresponding timings.

This position paper by the European Compost Network (ECN) addresses the production of quality compost and digestate obtained from separately collected feedstock, and the presence of plastics in the final product.
It concludes that the composting and anaerobic digestion sector must be framed as one of the many unintentional carriers of microplastics.

To gain more insight into the effects of different sediments on the degradation rate of biodegradable plastic, Andreas Eich, Miriam Weber and Christian Lott performed two iterative seawater tank experiments.
Understanding the parameters driving biodegradation is key to reliably report the range of disintegration rates occurring under the various conditions in different ecosystems.

The UK plastic industry is highly innovative, it adds considerable value to the materials it processes and is an important export industry.
The production of bio-based plastic produced from sustainable renewable resources, designed for recycling or composting, can play an important role in realising the UK’s 25 Year Environment Plan, its Green Industrial Revolution, and the ambition to build back better post COVID-19.

This new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) points to the growing pressure that soil is under from farming, mining, building and erosion.
Soil quality is fundamental to our global food industry and is now beginning to get the policy attention it deserves.

These guidelines, published by RECOUP, focus on the design of plastic packaging to facilitate recycling and represent a small but important aid for the journey to sustainable production and consumption.

The study, which was developed by E4tech (lead), BTG, Wageningen Research, FNR and ICONS with the support of over 100 stakeholders from the bio-based industry, presents scenarios on how demand and supply for bio-based chemicals and materials could grow to 2030, and provides roadmaps with actions required to increase the deployment of chemical and material driven biorefineries in the EU.

This study from the European Commission assesses the effectiveness of different initiative scenarios to close the plastic loop in Europe.

A number of videos in various European languages have been released by Novamont explaining composting and how to maintain the carbon cycle. The educational videos aim to describe and explain key concepts in terms of composting, such as biodegradation and how the carbon cycle feeds soil.
FIND OUT MORE
Development of quality standards for compost and digestate in Ireland
Prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland by Cré as part of the EPA Research Programme 2021–2030, this report details the developments of an updated compost standard and a new digestate standard based on the results of an analysis of Irish compost and digestate samples.

Prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland by Cré as part of the EPA Research Programme 2021–2030, this report details the developments of an updated compost standard and a new digestate standard based on the results of an analysis of Irish compost and digestate samples.

Life on Earth depends on organic carbon, the key building block for the many natural macromolecules crucial to life. Nature has evolved a process for recycling this organic carbon so that at the end of an organism’s life the natural polymers are broken down and the carbon can be re-incorporated into new living structures.
This BBIA report outlines how to utilise the biodegradability of polymer materials, composting, anaerobic digestion and soil degradation, among other things.

Agriculture is a major contributor to air pollution, the largest environmental risk factor for mortality in the United States and worldwide. It is largely unknown, however, how individual foods or entire diets affect human health via poor air quality.
This report from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) explores how food production negatively impacts human health by increasing atmospheric fine particulate matter.