uk legislation
It is important to appreciate the difference between Standards and Laws in this context. Standards are, essentially, a guide to specification and compliance with a Standard is not legally enforceable. Sometimes, Laws are enacted which embody references to Standards in order to define products which do or do not meet specific criteria - clearly in those cases it does make a real difference if a product does or does not meet the Standard.

At the present time, d2w, and any other oxo-biodegradable products, do not meet the requirements of EU Standards for degradable packaging. The significance of this and how this is likely to change are detailed below.

Standards
UK Standards are normalised with those of the EU. Domestic Standards are created by the British Standards Institute (BSi) who also administers those of the EU. The current Standard for degradable packaging is the European Standard, EN13432. A key feature of this Standard is the measurement (using the Sturm Test) of the speed of emission of CO2 in the course of degradation in compost. Although d2w products totally degrade, the speed at which they emit CO2 does not meet the current Standard - indeed, based on this definition even a leaf cannot be called 'degradable'.

A BSI Working Group 2004/00862, reporting to Committee PKW/00, is currently formulating a new British Standard designed to recognise the functionality of oxo-biodegradable technology. This has been under way for some months and is titled at present BSi Standard PKW/00 Doc. 2004/00862.

In 2008, Plantic expects sales to increase, particularly in view of the distribution agreement with DuPont and the continuing projects with brand owners for rigid sheet material.

'Japan is a key market for biodegradable plastics and DuPont is ideally placed to provide Plantic with distribution in this important market,' the bioplastics company said in a statement.