EU microplastic ban regulations introduced through REACH in 2023 are transforming how industries use plastics. The comprehensive rules phase
From the article:
European Union microplastic rules are working. They have changed how companies make and use plastics across dozens of industries. The regulations aim to eliminate microplastics that pollute oceans, soil, and even the human body.
The EU microplastic ban regulations started in 2023 through a law called REACH. These rules will remove microplastics from face scrubs, laundry detergent, paints, cosmetics, agricultural products, and many other items by 2035. Companies must now find alternatives that break down naturally instead of lasting hundreds of years in the environment.
The regulations define microplastics as tiny pieces of synthetic polymer that don’t break down. This clear definition helps companies know exactly what they need to replace. Industries are responding by creating biodegradable materials that decompose into water, carbon dioxide, and natural matter within months instead of centuries.
Market research firm IDTechEx studied these changes in their report Microplastics 2025: Regulations, Technologies, and Alternatives. Their analysis shows how EU microplastic ban regulations are speeding up the development of earth-friendly plastic alternatives throughout Europe and beyond.
An Infinitely Recyclable Plastic Could Solve the World’s Pollution Problem https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/an-infinitely-recyclable-bio-plastic-could-solve-worlds-pollution-problem/
The Lawrence Berkeley Lab has created a new infinitely recyclable plastic that could be the answer to the world's growing pollution problem.
HoldOn Bags - compostable trash, pet, and ziplock bags
Kangaroo Hangers - made of entirely recycled materials and designed to bend instead of snap when carrying too much weight
Living Pantry - family-owned eco-friendly shop
Moziwash - laundry detergent based on perfume and cologne
Oak & Willow - from their home page: "Welcome to eco-friendly living made affordable", has a program in America that you can buy a package for someone who can't afford one
Trashie - has a take-back bag to donate clothes and electronics
Decor
Curious Hawaii - home decor made in Hawai'i
Darby's Crochet Corner - crochet plushies (store currently unavailable)
Understory labyrinth - self watering ceramic pots for carnivorous plants and seedlings
Warm People Co - mostly blankets, some plushies and clothes
Paint
Rustoleum Colors (english brand)
Hera Ray (has paint, door knockers, doorknobs, and more)
there are soooooo many sustainable, eco-friendly alternatives to synthetic fabrics, and even to cotton, and single-use plastic but companies don’t want to do any of the work to use these alternative products instead 🙃🙃
bamboo/eucalyptus/hemp fabrics? plant-based compostable plastic alternatives? glass and aluminum instead of plastic? even paper? there are so many viable options but they don’t care, they’re just going to keep creating unfathomable amounts of waste and polluting and destroying the environment while trying to shame us for using plastic and other synthetic and non-recyclable materials when they offer very little alternatives.
plastic mailers? styrofoam peanuts? plastic tape? plastic cups? plastic bags? THERE ARE ECO-FRIENDLY ALTERNATIVES TO EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE but noooooo, amazon just has to ship every fucking item in it’s own individual plastic mailer that’s at LEAST 10x the size of the item. but nooooo, starbucks puts every fucking drink in a plastic cup, or at least with a plastic lid. but noooooo, it would be too difficult to simply switch over to paper packing tape.
paper mailers or cardboard boxes. plant based packing peanuts THAT DISSOLVE IN WATER. paper tape. paper cups or reusable cups. plant based compostable plastic alternatives (and for personal use, reusable bags).
Toppan, a Japanese global printing company, has developed a paper tube-pouch that’s made of 50% less plastic than the existing laminated tubes for products such as toothpaste. The company also reviewed the plastic part of the tube’s head and believed that they could reduce the plastic even further to 65%....
Chitin and chitosan from crustacean shells could put a dent in the world’s plastic waste problem.
Lobster bisque and shrimp cocktail make for scrumptious meals, but at a price. The food industry generates 6 million to 8 million metric tons of crab, shrimp and lobster shell waste every year. Depending on the country, those claws and legs largely get dumped back into the ocean or into landfills.
In many of those same landfills, plastic trash relentlessly accumulates. Humans have produced over 8 billion tons of plastic since mass production began in the 1950s. Only 10 percent of plastic packaging gets recycled successfully. Most of the rest sits in landfills for a very long time (a plastic bottle takes about 450 years to break down), or escapes into the environment, perhaps sickening seabirds that swallow tiny pieces or gathering in the Pacific Ocean’s floating garbage patch (SN Online: 3/22/18).
Some scientists think it’s possible to tackle the two problems at once. Crustaceans’ hardy shells contain chitin, a material that, along with its derivative chitosan, offers many of plastic’s desirable properties and takes only weeks or months to biodegrade, rather than centuries.
The challenge is getting enough pure chitin and chitosan from the shells to make bio-based “plastic” in cost-effective ways. “There’s no blueprint or operating manual for what we’re doing,” says John Keyes, CEO of Mari Signum, a start-up company based just outside of Richmond, Va., that is devising ways to make environmentally friendly chitin. But a flurry of advances in green chemistry is providing some guideposts.
Nature’s scaffold
Chitin is one of the most abundant organic materials in the world, after cellulose, which gives woody plants their structure. In addition to crustaceans, chitin is found in insects, fish scales, mollusks and fungi. Like plastic, chitin is a polymer, a molecular chain made from repeating units. The building block in chitin, N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, is a sugar related to glucose. Chitin and chitosan are antibacterial, nontoxic and used in cosmetics, wound dressings and pool-water treatments, among other applications.
This 2-inch square of compostable chitin foam could be used to make surfboards or biodegradable food packaging. CREDIT: CRUZ FOAM
Entrepreneurs are trying to launch new chitin products. Cruz Foam, a company in Santa Cruz, Calif., set out to produce surfboards from chitin, though the company has since pivoted to focus on the much larger market of packaging foam. Polystyrene foam, a common component in both surfboards and food packaging, takes a minimum of 500 years to biodegrade. Company cofounder Marco Rolandi is convinced that his Cruz Foam will biodegrade readily, based on his at-home test. “I put Cruz Foam in my backyard compost and a month later there were worms growing on it,” he says. Eco-friendly surfboards and wound dressings are valuable, but they are niche products — small potatoes that won’t make a dent in the massive amounts of fossil fuel–based plastics. Scientists have proposed large-scale production of chitin or chitosan in the past. But the chemistry for isolating the materials from shell waste has some big drawbacks, so the work didn’t get far.
Making use of seafood shell waste starts with drying the shells. CREDIT: MARI SIGNUM
For one thing, pulling out the chitin traditionally requires corrosive chemicals. A crustacean shell contains 15 to 40 percent chitin. To get to the chitin requires removing the protein along with the minerals, largely calcium carbonate, that make the shells stiff. Hydrochloric acid, a strong acid, removes calcium carbonate while generating carbon dioxide emissions; sodium hydroxide, or lye, is a strong base that removes the protein. Producing a single kilogram of chitin requires 10 kilograms of shells, six kilograms of coal for heating purposes, nine kilograms of hydrochloric acid, eight kilograms of sodium hydroxide and 330 kilograms of freshwater. Washing the chitin to remove residual contaminants can use up to an additional 200 kilograms of water.
Getting the chitosan requires an extra step: adding hot, concentrated sodium hydroxide solution to the chitin. To do this work in a sustainable way, companies must invest in pricey corrosion-resistant reactors, wastewater treatment and carbon dioxide capture technology.
The harsh reactions used today also sever the long polymer chains that make the materials sturdy, limiting chitin’s and chitosan’s versatility. Mari Signum’s chief technology officer, Julia Shamshina, offers a clothing analogy: It’s impossible to make a sweater with a ball of yarn made only of short threads.
Dried seafood waste is put through several chemical steps to extract the chitin. One extra step gets to the derivative, chitosan (shown), which is also being tested as a plastic replacement. CREDIT: COURTESY OF MICHAEL HOFER/FRAUNHOFER INST.
Approaches that reduce or eliminate corrosive reagents, recycle water and keep the polymers strong are in demand, says Pierre-Olivier Morisset of Merinov, a research center in Gaspé, Canada, that helps marine-product companies manage waste and commercialize innovations. “We’re looking for technologies that can produce hundreds of kilograms” of chitin or chitosan with long polymer chains, Morisset says. But developing greener methods is not easy.
Seafood suppliers face economic drawbacks as well. Today, U.S. producers pay landfills to take their shells. But those who want to keep the waste out of the landfill and support chitin production must still pay to dry the shells and transport them to often faraway extraction facilities, like Mari Signum. For its part, Mari Signum is changing the equation by paying the transportation bills for its Gulf Coast suppliers. Once Mari Signum is profitable, the company says it will also pay those suppliers for their shells.
When Keyes was a pro bono consultant for an aquaculture business a few years ago, he faced that same food waste decision. The company planned to haul its shells to regional landfills, Keyes says, “until we … tracked down Robin Rogers.”
