What are the advantages of certified soil-biodegradable applications?

Products made from cerified soil-biodegradable plastics provide significant benefits where retrieval and recycling of conventional plastics pose serious problems. They are specifically designed to biodegrade effectively in situ and can therefore be incorporated into the soil post-harvest.

Advantages of soil-biodegradable mulch films

Due to their soil-biodegradability, certified soil-biodegradable applications help to stop leakage and the accumulation of microplastics in agricultural soils, unlike conventional plastics when these are not completely removed or properly disposed of. Especially thin non-
biodegradable mulch films (with thicknesses typically below 30 μm) have a poor collection and retrieval management, which can lead to a worrying level of plastic pollution in the fields.

Certified soil-biodegradable mulch films do not cause loss of agricultural topsoil. Even where conventional mulch films are removed from the fields, they are often heavily contaminated with soils and plantresidues up to 60-80% of the initial weight of the film.

Not only does the collection of non-biodegradable mulch films cause removal of topsoil (166 kt/yr in Europe)4, but it also inhibits the recycling process. Additionally, certified soil-biodegradable mulch films represent a useful tool to reduce plastic waste at source, since they avoid completely the production of a category of plastic waste difficult to
be collected and disposed of in the first place.

Certified soil-biodegradable mulch films have been in use commercially since over 20 years, mainly for the cultivation of vegetable crops, where they have proved agronomic efficiency similar to the non-biodegradable mulch films5 in terms of:

• Increase of soil temperature and retention of moisture leading to a better plant establishment and growth as well as early crop production compared to the bare soil,
• Reduction on the weed competition and better use of nutrients leading to a higher production and better quality of the crop compared to the bare soil,
• Increase in the development of a root system compared to bare
  soil, leading to a better crop development,
• Decrease in the use of phytosanitary products (specifically herbicides).

Certified soil-biodegradable mulch films, thanks to their end-of-life characteristics, can as well be introduced as technical tools on crops such as maize, rice, vine, and processing tomato, which generally cannot benefit from the use of conventional mulches. ©europeanbioplastics

Production of biodegradable mulch films made from Bio-Flex®

To promote efficiency and environmental protection in agriculture: mulch films made from biodegradable plastics are an economical and ecological alternative to conventional agricultural films. Find out more here!