{"id":490,"date":"2011-10-26T03:30:30","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T03:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/?p=490"},"modified":"2011-10-26T03:30:30","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T03:30:30","slug":"pec-to-develop-biodegradation-standard-for-plastic-additives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/?p=490","title":{"rendered":"PEC to Develop Biodegradation Standard for Plastic Additives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plastics Environmental Council to Develop Biodegradation Standard for Plastics\u00a0Additives and New Certification Seal<\/span><\/h3>\n

Biodegradable Additives Play Critical Role in Helping Solve the Plastics in Landfill Issue<\/p>\n

Milton, GA, OCTOBER 24, 2011 — The Plastics Environmental Council (PEC<\/a>) today announced the
\nsponsorship of a research study to produce the first standard specification for the landfill
\nbiodegradation of petroleum- and natural gas-derived plastics that have been treated with additives
\nthat enhance biodegradation. The PEC is undertaking the development of the biodegradation standard
\nspecification to build confidence in the efficacy of plastics additives with regulators, consumers and
\nbusinesses. Plastic additives that speed up the breakdown of plastic in landfills<\/a>, without affecting their
\nperformance during use, are critically important to helping reduce the volume of plastic waste in
\nlandfills.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that readily consumer-separated items such as soda and milk bottles are collected and
\nrecycled at increasing rates, the majority of plastics simply cannot be recycled for a variety of reasons
\nincluding contamination, collection and logistics costs, second end-use limitations, etc. According to
\nthe United States Environmental Protection Agency, 13 million tons of plastic containers and packaging
\nended up in landfills in 2008. The PEC\u2019s<\/a> effort to develop a landfill biodegradation specification standard
\nis intended to address this issue.<\/p>\n

To develop the standard specification, PEC has partnered with Georgia Tech and North Carolina State
\nUniversity to conduct a large-scale research and development program, headed by a leading expert on
\nlandfill technology, Professor Morton Barlaz of North Carolina State. Professor Barlaz and his team will
\nstudy waste degradation rates under both laboratory and field (landfill) conditions of petroleum- and
\nnatural gas-derived plastics that have been treated with PEC member companies\u2019 additives to produce
\nthe standard specification. Once developed, the standard specification will reliably project the landfill
\nbiodegradation rates for a given PEC-certified product in a given range of landfills over a given range of
\nmoisture conditions with much more certainty than is possible today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we already know from various independent laboratory tests that our member companies\u2019
\nadditives are expected to be effective at speeding up the biodegradation of petroleum and natural gasderived
\nplastics in landfills, this will be the first-of-its-kind study to verify biodegradation<\/a> rates of plastic
\nwaste treated with such additives under both laboratory and field conditions,\u201d said Senator Robert
\nMcKnight, PEC Board chairman. \u201cThe new standard will allow us to develop a simple certification seal
\nthat will inspire confidence in these additives from businesses, consumers and regulators.\u201d<\/p>\n

While most plastics from hydrocarbons are recyclable, they are not biodegradable without the addition
\nof chemical additives and remain in landfills virtually forever. Chemical additives, many of which are
\napproved for use by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), are added to the plastic resins during the
\nmanufacturing process and do not alter the final product\u2019s performance, are undetectable by the end
\nuser, and products containing them can be processed through current recycling methods.<\/p>\n

The PEC expects the landfill biodegradability certification seal to be available in approximately 18
\nmonths.<\/p>\n

PEC member companies include Wincup, Ecologic, Bio-Tec Environmental, ECM Biofilms, ENSO Plastics<\/a>,
\nPure Plastics, C-Line Products, Inc., Ecolab, and FP International.<\/p>\n

About the Plastics Environmental Council
\nThe PEC is a consortium of businesses, independent scientists and academics, engineers, landfill and compost
\noperators, and environmental groups. Our goal is to assist our members in promoting the efficacy of state-of-themarket
\ntechnology to facilitate the biodegradation of conventional petroleum-derived plastics in landfills and
\nrelated disposal environments. For more information, please visit: http:\/\/pec-us.org\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plastics Environmental Council to Develop Biodegradation Standard for Plastics\u00a0Additives and New Certification Seal Biodegradable Additives Play Critical Role in Helping Solve the Plastics in Landfill Issue Milton, GA, OCTOBER 24, 2011 — The Plastics Environmental Council (PEC) today announced the sponsorship of a research study to produce the first standard specification for the landfill biodegradation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[737,3,4,246,743,1],"tags":[788,517,789,79,12,790,785,787,786],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biodegradation-2","category-latest-blogs","category-latest-news","category-plastic-news","category-thought-provoking","category-uncategorized","tag-better-labeling-for-biodegradable-additives","tag-biodegradable-additives","tag-clearer-terms-for-biodegradable-additives","tag-enso-biodegradable-plastics","tag-enso-bottles","tag-landfill-biodegradable-additives","tag-pec","tag-pec-to-develop-biodegradation-standard-for-plastic-additives-and-new-certification-seal","tag-plastics-environmental-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}