Bioplastics, the recycling of compostable packaging grows to 60.7%

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In the 155 Italian treatment plants, 60.7% of the compostable bioplastic packaging placed on the market was recycled in 2022: 46,600 tons out of 76,800. The growth compared to 2021 was 9 percent. These are the results contained in the annual report on the 2022 activities of Biorepack, the national consortium for the organic recycling of compostable bioplastic packaging which brings together 218 companies (producers, processors, users and recyclers) and has agreements with 3,777 Municipalities (47.8% of the total) where 38 million people live (64.4% of the national population). Thanks to these, in 2022 Biorepack paid the municipalities 9.3 million euros, to cover the costs of collection, transport and treatment of this packaging (1.8 million euros more than in 2021).

European targets for plastics exceeded

«Compostable bioplastic must be collected together with organic waste. As the Italian legislation also says. We were born with this awareness», explains the president of Biorepack, Marco Versari. Even if the targets that the consortium has set in its statute are those relating to plastic recycling of 50% by 2025 and 55% by 2030. Numbers already exceeded: «Starting point for quickly reaching further goals. The differences in regional coverage are still too marked, despite the fact that the separate collection of urban waste containing bioplastics is mandatory throughout Italy from 1 January 2022», says the president. The agreements with Biorepack cover 90% of the population of the north-eastern regions, while in the southern regions they stop at 53% and in the islands they drop to 30%.

In Italy great diffusion of implants

The compostable packaging recycling chain has compost as its final treatment product, but not only that: from the integrated cycles of anaerobic digestion, in addition to composting, biomethane and carbon dioxide can be generated, which can be used for beverages. «Italy has generated advanced systems for the treatment of the organic fraction because it has been able to create a complex system, with a great variety of plants throughout the territory.

Apart from Rome where there is no treatment of organic waste and some areas of Campania, Italy is perhaps the country with the greatest diffusion of plants for the wet fraction of waste. And in these the part of production linked to energy is increasingly important», observes the president: «It has been an evolution, a growth, which has gone hand in hand with that of separate waste collection, which began in the middle of the Nineties with the Ronchi Decree. Milan is the city that collects the most humidity per capita in all of Europe: it’s a system that works, in which there hasn’t been a replacement, but everything was born as a consequence, in a cycle that links the production of bioplastics, so the ‘Italy has a tradition, the use, in supermarket bags for example, and the collection of organic waste”.

Competitive advantage for companies

For Versari, this situation gives our companies a competitive advantage: «It’s a system that can also be taken out, abroad. I hope we can spread the technologies. It is an opportunity for the Italian supply chain».