All You Need to Know about
Compostable Flexible Packaging

The term ‘biodegradable’ represents a process, but not necessarily under what conditions or time frame, also, the rate of decomposition can vary significantly. Technically, all chemical compounds can be biodegradable under the right conditions, and will decompose over a certain period of time, but that time could be hundreds or thousands of years. For example, wood is biodegradable, but wooden structures don’t break down and can stand for generations. Trees are biodegradable, but stand for hundreds of years. If a material is compostable, it means that under composting conditions (heat, humidity, oxygen, & microorganisms) it will break down to CO₂, water, and a nutrient-rich compost within a specific time frame.

Want to know even more? Check out our blog post.

Heat, humidity, oxygen, & microorganisms. Shredding the material into small pieces will help move along the degradation process. We encourage you to look further into this topic if it’s something you want to learn more deeply about. Take a look at this video from TUV Austria.

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The main difference between home and industrial composting is the rate of biodegradation. Interested about learning more? European Bioplastics define the difference here.

Oxo-degradable plastics are made from non-biodegradable conventional plastics and supplemented with additives that chemically mimic biodegradation to facilitate fragmentation of the material. Oxo-degradable plastics break down into very small fragments that remain in the environment.