Plastic materials, including those classified as “biodegradable” or “compostable”, must be excluded from domestic and collective composters, ANSES recommends in an opinion issued this Tuesday. More than one in three French people recycle their waste in domestic or collective compost bins (brown bins).
In addition to food waste, such as vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, and tea bags, some people add plastic waste, including so-called “biodegradable,” “bio-based,” or “compostable” plastic bags.
But for all these plastic materials, “it is not guaranteed” that “they will completely degrade in domestic composters, especially since it is difficult to control the operating conditions,” stresses ANSES.
contamination risk
When these composts are reused, for example in vegetable gardens, contamination of the environment and local crops cannot be excluded.
“This contamination can come from the various components of the materials” such as polymers, residual monomers, additives or organic fillers “which present potential dangers for both human health and the environment”, underlines Stéphane Leconte, coordinator of the experience at ANSES .
For this reason, ANSES recommends not depositing any plastic material in domestic and collective composters and favoring industrial composting.
The agency also recommends reviewing the regulations governing composting. It should “prohibit any allusion or even incitement to put plastic materials in a domestic compost” and review the rules around biodegradability with particularly more restrictive criteria, he believes.
Source: BFM TV
