Bioplastics, industry on alert: 'Revenues at risk due to unfair competition'

In the beginning there is Sup (single plastic use), the European directive created to limit single-use plastic that came into force in 2019: since then, straws, balloon poles, cutlery, but also plates and food containers made of expanded polystyrene are banned. Allowed instead are compostable products, towards which many companies in the Italian chain are turning with significant investments and production conversion: volumes (and turnovers) are in fact growing until 2023, the year of an abrupt stop.

On the latest report on the Italian compostable bioplastics supply chain, promoted by Assobioplastiche, Biorepack and Cic, and drawn up by Plastic Consult, we read that the sector's turnover, after the 2022 record (1.16 billion euro), has fallen to 828 million (-29.1%), on the wave of the sharp drop recorded by price lists, while the overall volumes of manufactured products have touched 120.900 tonnes (-5.5% compared to 2022), with the greatest difficulties encountered by the single-use sector itself, which recorded a 20% drop: "After a great growth whereby we went from 3 thousand tonnes in 2018 to touch 24-25 thousand in 2022, in 2023 we dropped below 20 thousand, and the trend for 2024 is confirmed to be downward, with an average contraction of 10-15%," explains Assobioplastiche president Luca Bianconi.

What has happened? The Italian market has been crushed by unfair competition from 'pseudo-reusable' and imports of compostable products from the Far East, such as pulp plates that also raise doubts about safety in contact with food. "The legislative decree 196/2021 with which Italy transposed Sup did not indicate a definition of 'reusable', creating a grey area in which single-use has reappeared". "It is back in the form of reusable, washable crockery, but which nobody washes and indeed throws away after use. There are no controls on this and the recent Ppwr (European Packaging Regulation, ed.) does not bring clarity," testifies Armido Marana, vice-president of Confindustria Vicenza with responsibility for sustainability and the circular economy and managing director of Ecozema, a company in Santorso (Vicenza) with a turnover of around ten million that produces cutlery, crockery, shoppers, and disposable compostable plastic cups, with a focus on collective catering: "We have added a machine in our company that makes paper plates with a compostable bioplastic coating: at the moment, with the return of disposable plastic falsely reusable, it is, however, a product that cannot be sold. Italian companies are converting to importing products from Asia instead of producing them, the effect of a bad law and lack of controls'. The phenomenon also blocks innovation. Marana observes a reduction in turnover of 15 per cent in 2023 and a 'sharp drop' expected in 2024; in the company, as of yesterday, the redundancy fund is active one day a week until the end of November.

Marco Perini, legal representative of C.P.B. Componenti Plastici Biodegradabili in Entratico (Bergamo), which markets compostable cutlery and crockery under the Usobio brand, confirms the negative trend: for the company, revenues, around 14 million in 2022, have dropped by 30%, as has the number of workers, even with the use of the redundancy fund. "In 2023, the return to the market of traditional plastic products, now defined as 'reusable' although not designed to be so, and with lower prices, has been devastatingly felt. While we are left with squeezed margins and lost volumes. Those who want to abide by the principles of the European directive, those who had invested in supplying a sector, that of compostable, that was not there before, are being put out of business by products that deceive the consumer and the environment. We demand clarity, parameters to define what is reusable based on actual use. We need immediate answers'.

"We have put forward the proposal to simplify controls and to define what is actually reusable, working on weights and dimensions," explains Assobioplastiche president Bianconi: "A working table has also been set up with deputy environment minister Vannia Gava, and we expect it to be convened now after the summer.