Food waste: Compostable liners and packaging

BBIA ran a webinar on 25 January 2021, which invited industry experts to discuss the key issues influencing the collection of food waste from households.

Speakers included:

Pendragon Stuart, Sancroft International, discussed Sancroft International’s cost and benefit analysis of using compostable caddy liners for the collection of food waste.

Tony Breton, Novamont, discussed BBIA’s recent paper providing a 10-year perspective on how the UK can ensure best practice when food waste collections will be mandated from 2023.

Enzo Favoino, Zero Waste Europe, presented on Italian bio-waste collections and implications for policies in other EU countries and the UK.

Kathy Nichols, Judy Proctor and Richard Fairweather, Environment Agency, gave an update on potential changes to biowaste treatment standards and permits.

Chris Preston, Deputy Director, Resources and Waste, Environmental Quality from DEFRA provided a government response for England.

Panel discussion contributors included:

Jenny Grant, REA

Adam Read, SUEZ

Sian Sutherland, A Plastic Planet

Sam Hinton, ADBA

Jim Armstrong, Recoup

Philippa Arnold, NFU

You can view presentations from the webinar below.

How to get rid of plastic pollution? Can composting come in where material recycling ends?

BBIA ran a webinar on 13 October 2020 in collaboration with SYSTEMIQ and TIPA on ways to tackle plastic pollution.

SYSTEMIQ just published Breaking the Plastic Wave, a ground-breaking report with the Pew Charitable Trusts to find solutions to the global plastic problem. TIPA produces compostable solutions for flexible packaging.

Speakers included:

David Newman, Managing Director, BBIA

Yoni Shiran, Programme Director, Breaking the Plastic Wave, SYSTEMIQ

Julia Koskella, Plastic Reduction Lead, Breaking the Plastic Wave, SYSTEMIQ

Julia Schifter, VP Strategy Analysis, TIPA Compostable Packaging

You can view presentations from the webinar below.

Circular Bioeconomy Products

BBIA ran a webinar on 1 October 2020 on three case studies showcasing the UK’s growing bioeconomy.

The first case study was from Woolcool, an award winning company from Staffordshire, UK, whose use of wool as a packaging insulation material was recognised by the Queen’s Award for Enterprise (Innovation) in 2018.

The second was from Ananas Anam, which produces a fibre material known as Piñatex. Piñatex is a natural, sustainable and innovative material made from pineapple leaf fibres.

The third was BBIA founder member Fuchs Lubricants, a German company with production facilities in the UK which have been using bio-based and biodegradable polymers to produce biodegradable lubricants since the 1970s.

Speakers included:

Josie Morris, Managing Director, Woolcool

Em Mendoza, Marketing Manager, Ananas Anam

Paul Tierney, Technical Manager, Fuchs Lubricants

You can view presentations from the webinar below.

Compostable packaging – Standards, collections and EPR

BBIA ran a webinar on 28 September 2020 in collaboration with Futamura, which brought together government experts to discuss standards for biodegradable, bio-based and compostable plastics, collections of compostables and how compostables will fit into a plastic packaging EPR regime or a DRS.

Speakers included:

Andy Sweetman, Futamura

Robert Vaughan, Defra

Tom Pye, Defra

Peter Cottrell, BEIS

Food waste collections and unintended consequences of plastic contamination

BBIA took part in a webinar on 24 September 2020 hosted by MEP Franc Bogovič, Co-Chair of the Bioeconomy Working Group of the European Parliament Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, to discuss contamination in food waste collections and the impact of plastic waste on collections and products of organic waste.

Speakers included:

Marco Ricci-Jürgensen, Chair, Working Group on Biowaste, International Solid Waste Association and Senior Expert Italian Composting and Biogas Association

Mattia Pellegrini, Head of Unit Waste Management and Secondary Materials, DG Environment, European Commission

Harmen Dekker, Managing Director, European Biogas Association

Liliana Nichita, Director, Federation of Intercommunity Development Associations, Romania

Compostables – Certification and identification

BBIA, in collaboration with Futamura, ran a webinar on 18 September 2020 on the certification and identification of compostable packaging.

Speakers included:

Dr Lucy Cowton, Futamura

Percy Foster, Cré

Rob Thompson, Co-op

Margaret Bates, On-Pack Recycling Label

You can view the presentations from the webinar below.

Compostable packaging: The infrastructure question – Identification, collection and revalorisation

BBIA, in collaboration with Futamura, ran a webinar on 20 July 2020 on on the best routes treatment and making value from compostable packaging.

Speakers included:

Lucy Frankel, Vegware

Jenny Grant, REA

David Stowe, Compost Bag UK

Grant Keenan, Keenan Recycling

You can view the presentations from the webinar below.

Where compostable packaging works best

BBIA, in collaboration with Futamura, ran a webinar on 10 July 2020 on where compostable packaging works best, featuring discussion with industry experts and BBIA members throughout the value chain.

Speakers included:

Andy Sweetman, Futamura

Kieran MacSweeney , Biotec

Mark Shaw, Parkside Flexibles

Caroline Herveou, Planet Organic

You can view the presentations from the webinar below.

Usable packaging, one year of project work and an update from the partners

BBIA ran a webinar on 2 July 2020 to provide an update on the Usable Packaging project, which is funded by the EU Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 836884.project, one year from its launch in June 2019.

More information can be found on the Usable Packaging website.

You can view the presentations from the webinar below.

Future of organics

REA Organics ran a webinar on 30 June 2020 on the future of organics, featuring speakers from REA, SUEZ Recycling and Recovery, WRM, Veolia and Keenan Recycling.

You can view the presentation from the webinar here.

You can view the video of the webinar here.

A new Extended Producer Responsibility system for compostable packaging – the Italian model

BBIA ran a webinar on 17 June 2020 on recent developments in Italy following government approval of a new programme for the management of compostable packaging. The programme, known as Biorepak, will be run within the national EPR scheme for packaging that is managed by a joint government-business consortium known as CONAI, the National Consortium for Packaging.

Speakers included:

Mariagiovanna Vetere, Global Affairs Director at Natureworks

Robbie Staniforth, Policy Director at Ecosurety

You can view the presentation from the webinar on the BBIA website.

You can also download the entire recording from the GoToWebinar link.

Compostable packaging: its role in the UK and the need for better supply chain alignment

BBIA took part in a webinar on 16 June 2020 run by CIWM that looked at the state of compostable packaging in Italy, WRAP’s recently released guide for compostable packaging and how the supply chain should better align to be better prepared to deal with compostable packaging.

Speakers included:

Iain Ferguson, Environment Manager at Co-Op

Emily Nichols, Technical Manager at REA Organics

Tony Breton, UK & Ireland Market Specialist for Novamont

Helen Bird, Strategic Engagement Manager, WRAP

You can view the presentation from the webinar on the BBIA website.

Collecting compostables in London, Brighton and Sussex

Vegware and Paper Round held a webinar on their new compostables collection service operating in London, Brighton and Sussex on 27 May 2020.

You can view the full session, including a Q&A section, on the video to the right.

A number of questions were unable to be answered during the webinar, and Vegware and Paper Round have provided answers to these, which can be viewed on this information document from Vegware.

Food waste collections in the UK

BBIA ran a webinar on 14 May 2020 on what the UK can learn from other EU countries that have implemented separate collections of food waste.

Presenters included:

Marco Ricci, Technical Expert at the Italian Compost and Biogas Association (CIC) / Chair of the International Solid Waste Association Working Group on Biowaste.

Wilbert Smeets, SESA, Technical Director of four Italian plants in northern Italy that treat a total of one million tonnes of food waste annually

Susanne Lindeneg, Technical Advisor for waste issues at the City of Copenhagen Council

Teresa Guerrero, Head of Separate Collection Promotion, Circular Economy Area, Waste Agency of Catalonia

Kathy Nichols, Senior Advisor, Environment Agency

Rebecca Thompson, Senior Policy Manager at the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA)

Jenny Grant, Organics Recycling and Biogas Groups Manager – Scotland, the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA)

Organics recycling and infrastructure

BBIA ran a webinar on 24 September 2018 on the barriers and challenges facing composting infrastructure and the technical issues for recycling compostable packaging.

Speakers included:

Andy Sweetman, Chairman of BBIA and Marketing Manager Europe and Middle East for Futamura Films Ltd UK

Charlie Trousdell, Owner of Charlie Trousdell Associates and Chairman of Renewable Energy Association’s (REA) Organic Recycling Group (ORG)

Lucy Frankel, Communications Director at Vegware

Emily Nichols, Technical Manager of the REA’s Organics Recycling Group

Bioplastics and the Circular Economy

BBIA ran a webinar on 26 June 2018 on what bioplastics are, what they can and cannot do and their role in the circular economy and reducing plastic and food waste.

Speakers included:

Andy Sweetman, Chairman of BBIA and Marketing Manager Europe and Middle East for Futamura Films Ltd UK
Dr John Williams, Director of Aquapakpolymers Ltd UK a bioplastics producer, and S’Investec Ltd a biotechnology investor
Julia Schifter,  VP Strategy Analysis TIPA Sustainable Packaging Israel
Moderator, David Newman,  Managing Director of BBIA and former President of the International Solid Waste Association

Topics included reducing plastic packaging waste, the difference between bio-based and compostable and bio-based and durable plastics, oxodegradable plastics and production and development of bioplastics in international markets.

Some of these issues have been outlined in the Q&As of the BBIA website.