Industrial composting
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Degradation and Toxicity
The use of plastics is so widespread that they can be found everywhere, floating around in our rivers, oceans, and embedded into soil. Whenever plastic products end up in nature they should preferably degrade over time and not cause harm to the environment. At Normec OWS, we therefore offer degradation and toxicity testing under varying conditions to mimic how materials degrade and behave when they end up in different environments.
The environment in which the product is tested should primarily depend upon its expected end-of-life. Degradability is not only an inherent material characteristic, but also depends on environmental conditions such as the temperature, biological activity, and microbial diversity. For instance, the inactivity of fungi in landfills and aqueous environments has a major impact on the degradability of certain materials. Environments also differ in terms of aggressiveness; as a rule of thumb, industrial compost is considered most aggressive, followed by home compost, and soil. Aqueous environments are generally less aggressive.
