Sustainable Razors: biobased vs. compostable

In principle, any efforts to uncompromisingly avoid classic plastic based on fossil raw materials for the industrial production of products, to reduce the CO2 balance and to exclude all associated negative phenomena on our planet in the future.

Fortunately, more and more people value sustainability, particularly in view of protecting our planet and living environment. In this context, it is important to take a closer look at the various aspects attributed to non-fossil raw materials and materials made from them.

An important aspect is that the attributes “bio-based” and “compostable” cannot automatically be equated and that the differences between bio-based and compostable materials are presented. But what exactly do these terms mean, and why is it sometimes better from an ecological point of view to focus on bio-based materials and not their biodegradability?

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What does biobased, biodegradable and compostable mean?

Bio-based refers to materials that consist of biomass, where biomass represents the entirety of organic matter produced by animals and plants. The determination of the proportion of bio-based carbons in biomass and of a material or a product made from it is determined in accordance with DIN standard methods, including ASTM D6866 and EN 16640, using radiocarbon and elemental analysis. These methods can also be used to reliably determine whether and to what extent it is fossil carbon and how large the proportion of fossil carbons is. This provision is crucial for further consideration of the reuse of bio-based products, particularly with regard to whether biomass is of plant or fossil origin, as CO2 neutrality and thus the sustainability of bio-based materials depends decisively on this. This is because crude oil, the most important representative of fossil raw materials in addition to natural gas, was also produced millions of years ago from biomass with the absence of oxygen and high pressure, but, in contrast to plant biomass, is firmly bound in the earth's crust. The CO2 stored there would not be returned to the carbon cycle without human intervention. When evaluating the sustainability of a biobased material or product, it is therefore crucial whether it is fossil or plant-based raw materials, as fossil raw materials, in contrast to plant-based raw materials, cannot be reused in a CO2-neutral manner.

Compostability refers to a specific aspect of the sustainable reuse of bio-based products and their raw materials and to the fact that a product can be biodegraded under certain conditions, usually by microorganisms and with the addition of oxygen into carbon dioxide, water, mineral salts and biomass, or without oxygen supply into carbon dioxide, methane, mineral salts and biomass, in order to finally break down into compost.

However, it is fundamentally important to consider that biodegradable does not automatically mean bio-based and non-fossil origin! For example, there are also petroleum-based, i.e. fossil, plastics that are biodegradable.

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Why is the bio-based aspect often more important than degradable and compostable?

A common misconception is that the property “compostable”, as a partial aspect of biodegradability, automatically associates the attributes of “more environmentally friendly” and “sustainable” than the “bio-based” property. But that is simply not always correct. Although some bio-based materials contain components that are degradable and compostable, they consist of fossil and chemically produced raw materials. In addition, some renewable, bio-based raw materials are grown in monocultures on agricultural land and with plants actually intended for food supply, which are ultimately removed from this use.

So it's worth taking a closer look here.

Using the example of PBS (polybutylene succinate), a biodegradable plastic that is produced chemically, the aspect with regard to fossil components can be illustrated. PBS is produced industrially by reacting succinic acid with 1,4-butanediol. The starting materials (succinic acid and 1,4-butanediol) are of fossil origin on the one hand and can be produced from glucose on the other hand. In addition to the critical aspects of chemical-industrial production, the reuse of this bio-based and compostable plastic plays a role. Since one of the two raw materials is of fossil origin, CO2-neutral reuse can no longer be assumed, even though the raw materials are biodegradable and compostable. In this regard, the attribute “compostable” therefore has no significance with regard to sustainability and CO2 neutrality. The attributes “bio-based” and “non-fossil origin”, on the other hand, have a completely different value. These express that a product consists of biomass of non-fossil origin and can therefore be further recycled in a CO2-neutral manner. Whether this is ultimately done through energy recovery or composting is secondary for now.

Another example of looking critically at the raw materials of bioplastics is PLA (polylactide), which is also a compostable plastic and represents a 100% bio-based, renewable raw material that is obtained from corn starch and grown in monocultures, but extracts resources from the food chain through use as a raw material for industrial products.

It is clear from this that considerations with regard to sustainability and CO2 neutrality, including in the area of so-called sustainable raw materials, should be differentiated.

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The importance of CO2 neutrality in incineration

In itself, the incineration of products, after waste prevention and recycling, is a secondary waste processing measure. However, if waste prevention and recycling cannot be implemented, for whatever reason, energy recovery in the form of incineration must be considered. Energy recovery is then a sensible measure, as the combustion process in an industrial incineration plant produces energy that can be used efficiently and further. However, what is burned in the incinerators is decisive here, as CO2 is released during the combustion process.

This is where the importance of bio-based materials and the products made from them comes into play. Products made from renewable, bio-based raw materials are CO2-neutral when incinerated. This is due to the fact that the CO2 released during combustion was previously removed from the carbon cycle during the growth process of the bio-based raw materials and is released again in a CO2-neutral manner during combustion.

In contrast, the combustion of products made from non-renewable, bio-based raw materials, as is the case with fossil raw materials, including crude oil, as a raw material in the plastic industry, leads to an additional release of CO2. These raw materials have been stored forever in areas of the earth's crust for millions of years and the CO2 they contain would never be released back into the atmosphere without human intervention. The industrial production of crude oil, as a raw material for the plastic industry and its products, brings this CO2 back into the carbon cycle. The combustion of these fossil raw materials and products made from them ultimately leads to an increase in the CO2 balance as a result of the release of the CO2 originally bound in the earth's crust. This type of combustion is then described as non-CO2-neutral and therefore unsustainable.

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Misleading marketing with the 'compostability' attribute

It's important to recognize that marketing companies using terms like “compostable” is often misleading. A product that is advertised as compostable could therefore be unsustainable, especially if it is of fossil origin, as is the case with many so-called bio-plastics. In addition, the various components are often firmly connected to each other, so that separate disposal is not possible and the attribute compostable is certainly no longer applicable. It is therefore crucial to focus on bio-based materials that are of non-fossil origin and are based on renewable raw materials.

For our products, we therefore use renewable, bio-based raw materials that are not produced explicitly industrially for use as raw material for products, but are generated as waste as part of other industrial use. 99% of the raw materials we use for our products are bio-based and of non-fossil origin. In this way, we ensure that our products can be disposed of in a CO2-neutral and therefore sustainable manner after reaching the end-of-life cycle. In principle, the raw materials of our products are biodegradable and also compostable. On the other hand, the requirements set by industrial composting plants and in EU standard 13432 or the “biodegradable” certification, according to which products may only contain 10% residues larger than two millimeters after twelve weeks, are not met by our products due to their compactness and the resulting prolonged degradation process. It should also be mentioned that, paradoxically, there are currently virtually no such plants in Europe. This, on the other hand, is another complex issue that must ultimately be resolved at political level by the EU. Until then, our products can be disposed of sustainably with household waste and recycled in a CO2-neutral manner.

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