Meta-Study on the environmental fate of PLA published

Today, the Technical Summary Report of our meta-study on PLA was published

Technical Summary

This meta-study reflects the current knowledge in the publicly available scientific literature and in institutional and company reports on polylactide, or poly(lactic acid), with focus on the aspects of biodegradation in the open environment, environmental impact and toxicology, and the implications for standard testing, certification, and regulation.

PLA is a versatile polymer with properties that can change and can be modulated over wide ranges. On its way from the producer as pellets until it becomes available on the market as a plastic product, and later possibly ends up in the open environment, the neat PLA may experience all kinds of material modifications. During production, the polymer is made with only a few ingredients and with every further step the material may be treated mechanically and with heat, further chemicals may be added, or other materials are combined or come in contact with until the final article is available.

All these aspects are not further regarded in depth, and mainly studies on neat PLA as a base material, either self-made on laboratory scale or from industrial production are considered in this report. It must be emphasized that, because of the above-mentioned potential material modifications, a final article made from or with PLA may have different environmental performance and effects than the material that leaves the polymer producer’s factory as raw material pellets.

Regarding the fate of PLA in the open environment the lead questions of this meta-study were:

How fast and to what extent does PLA degrade in the open environment and are microplastics formed, which are persistent? What is known about the ecotoxicity of PLA?

Additionally, the policy and regulation on microplastics on EU level were addressed and test methods, standards and certifications regarding biodegradability and biodegradation in the environment were briefly summarized.