The Australasian Bioplastics Association (ABA) has established a cooperation agreement with Germany's DIN CERTCO relating to the Australian Standard covering biodegradable plastics suitable for industrial composting.
The agreement will also cover assessment of products and materials destined for home composting and in the future, the certification of products or materials claiming biobased content.
DIN CERTCO will be the ABA's technical auditing partner to ensure biodegradable plastics conform to AS 4736-2006 under the ABA's verification program, and that home composting products comply with AS 5810-2010.
In January, DIN CERTCO managing director Robert Zorn and ABA president Rowan Williams signed a cooperation agreement in the presence of the European Bioplastics Association. With this agreement DIN CERTCO ensures the future assessment of applications according to the conformity mark 'Seedling Australasia' – or commonly known as the 'looped seedling logo' – issued by the ABA.
Williams said he and the team were excited to join with DIN CERTCO for the future assessments of products and materials claiming conformance to the Australian Standard.
“It's increasingly important to have an internationally recognised partner such as DIN CERTCO to collaborate with for the Australian and New Zealand markets, for certified compostable products and materials,” he said.
“As more communities introduce source separation systems for diverting food waste from landfill, having certified compostable products available that are 100 per cent biodegradable in industrial composting will give consumers and organic waste processors such as composters the assurance that the products will completely biodegrade in efficiently run systems.
“The visual logo on these products and materials will be easily recognised and food waste or organic waste contained in certified products can be easily separated out and diverted from landfill.
“More and more countries are phasing out or banning non-biodegradable plastics, so having certification schemes that confirm a material’s compostability is paramount.”
Zorn said that DIN CERTCO already has available accreditation according to the standard AS 4736 in the context of the 'DIN-Geprüft Industrial compostable' certification scheme, giving it respective competence.
“With this cooperation agreement, both parties provide support for the respective certification schemes offered by DIN CERTCO and ABA, such as for industrial compostability, home compostability or biobased products.”
European Bioplastics managing director Hasso von Pogrell said he welcomed the move.
“As owner of the collective mark of 'Seedling' and an industry inter-trade organization, we are in favour of opening and extending additional markets for the bioplastic industry based on applicable standards,” he said.
“DIN CERTCO has certified products made of compostable materials for nearly 20 years, according to DIN EN 13432 and ASTM D 6400, ensuring we cover the market's needs reliably.”
Williams said partnering with DIN CERTCO in Australasia brought even more credibility to the ABA's verification scheme for compostable and biodegradable materials.
“Stakeholders in this market can fully support our source separation of food waste programs using certified compostable materials such as food waste bags, garbage bags, compostable packaging and food service items to safely and hygienically divert this organic waste from landfills,” he said.
“This agreement is a very important and significant step forward for our organisations and can only credibly support compostable materials in our marketplace.”
