FTC Green Guides Aid in developing standards for Green Claims.
Green Certifications
1. Certifications such as (BPI) should disclose any material connections to the certifying organizations. Such as Tellis and Natureworks.
2. All users of seals should identify specific environmental benefits.
3. A marketer with a third-party certification must substantiate all express and implied claims.
4. Marketers should qualify compostable claims if the product can’t be composted at home
safely or in a timely way. Marketers also should qualify a claim that a product can be
composted in a municipal or institutional facility if the facilities aren’t available to a
substantial majority of consumers.
BioSphere Biodegradable Additive Difference
1. Marketers may make an unqualified degradable claim only if they can prove that the “entire
product or package will completely break down and return to nature within a reasonably
short period of time after customary disposal.” The “reasonably short period of time” for
complete decomposition of solid waste products? One year.
BioSphere PE and PP additive will allow for biodegradability of products that are film or disposable products in under a year.
BioSphere enhances hydrolysis of the products to decompose in the natural environment, BioSphere has formulated their product offering to allow 600 different microbes to be attracted to the polymer during the hydrolysis phase of biodegradation of the polymer. Biodegradable plastic additives work differently and BioSphere has tailored their product for rapid decomposition in natural and unnatural environments.
Hydrolysis occurs at the start of biodegradation, by enhancing this factor of hydrolysis you are severing the polymer chains to reduce the molecular weight of the product allowing for easier access by microorganisms to consume the plastic article. Once hydrolysis occurs the microbes take over rapidly consuming the synthetic plastic to decompose the product into CO2, CH4, dirt and water. Once the microbes have consumed the plastic article and off-gassed or assimilated the plastic article the landfills can capture the methane gas for use within their city or county to produce heat or energy for citizens.
