Degradation and Toxicity
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Real-life solutions
At Normec OWS, we strongly believe that biodegradability should never be a ‘license to litter’. Nonetheless, there are many examples whereby biodegradability can offer real-life solutions for consumer goods that end up in different environments. These include products that are unintentionally released into the environment and short-life products that are difficult to collect and recycle. Biodegradability can therefore be beneficial as an end-of-life solution for your products.
Coffee pads and capsules, tea bags, diapers, or hygienic products are examples of products with a short lifespan that are ideally suited for biodegradability. Particularly when there is the co-benefit that the coffee and tea waste ends up in organic rather than general household waste streams.
The biodegradable pad, capsule, or bag acts as a facilitator to make this possible. Otherwise, there are products such as fishing lines and bait, grass trimmer wires, paintball capsules, or items of clothing that unintentionally but inevitably can end up in the environment. Biodegradability of such materials ensures that they will degrade over time.
At Normec OWS, we perform biodegradability testing for all kinds of products, under varying conditions, and in different environments. Many consumer goods are multi-component products, which are made of different materials, additives, coatings, and inks. Besides the effect this has on biodegradability, different compounds or finishings can also have a toxic effect.
Our testing facilities include testing for different kinds of ecotoxicity, as well as heavy metals and fluorine. The test results can be used for certification as well as business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), and business-to-authority (B2A) communication purposes, each with their own nuances.
