The trouble is that the word bio has three completely different meanings:
In many European languages, bio has for years been the byword for organic. Then came bioplastics, which were both plant-based and biodegradable.
Part of the problem is that the latest generation of plant-based plastics, using PET, is not biodegradable. Lots of people assume biodegradable is entirely virtuous, but it seems more of a mixed blessing:
Plant-based PET is good news, because it’s fully compatible with existing PET recycling. So, let’s separate packaging words in the same way we have to separate packaging waste. We should simply stop referring to biopackaging and bioplastics. Instead, we should always be clear whether we mean:
So the online text above would be rewritten as ‘plant-based, non-biodegradable plastics’.
Richard Hall is chairman of Zenith International.
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