Renewable resource plastics: free from dependence on fossil raw materials
   Using feedstocks derived from renewable resources (greenhouse gases or biomass) helps to decouple plastic production from limited fossil feedstocks and reduce the greenhouse gas footprint of plastic packaging.
  1 Plastics that derive renewable resources from biomass or greenhouse gases
  1.1 Plastics, including bio-based plastics, from renewable sources of pure feedstock (bio-based feedstock) of biomass are not necessarily compostable, nor are compostable plastics necessarily bio-based. Bio-based plastics can be produced from different sources of raw materials.
  First generation: Biomass from plants, rich in carbohydrates, which can be used as food or animal feed (e.g., sugar cane, corn and wheat).
  Second generation: plant-based biomaterials not suitable for food or animal feed production. They can be non-food crops (such as cellulose) or they can be waste from first-generation feedstocks (such as waste vegetable oil, bagasse or corn stalks).
  Third generation: algae-derived biomass, which grows more than first - and second-generation feedstocks, has been divided into a separate category.

     2 Pure raw materials derived from greenhouse gases
  "Ghg-based plastics" refers to plastics where the carbon used as feedstock comes from capturing greenhouse gases (GHGS) such as carbon oxide and methane. Although not yet strictly defined, GHG-based feedstocks have been referred to as "fourth-generation feedstocks" in biofuels.
  Methane and carbon dioxide can be captured from multiple sources.
  On the one hand, methane (often mixed with carbon dioxide) can be recovered from landfills (as landfill gas), anaerobic digesters (as biogas), or coal brims (coal mine gas). Methane capture technology is relatively mature, although in some cases biogas production still needs to be improved. For PHA production, clean methane is not required. This makes capturing methane as a feedstock for PLA more attractive than buying natural gas at market prices (natural gas still needs to be clean).
  Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, can be obtained by recycling by-products of industrial and chemical processes, often mixed with hydrogen and oxygen, depending on the source. Given the chemical stability of carbon dioxide, breaking it down into its various components requires an efficient catalytic system and a lot of energy, both of which come at a price.
  In contrast to carbon dioxide, methane already has successful applications, such as for producing energy and electricity (this often happens in anaerobic digestion plants). In situations where methane is used in large quantities for energy and electricity production, the advantage of capturing CO2 for plastic production is that higher total greenhouse gas emissions can be captured and utilized.
  3 Ready-to-use and new materials
  According to their physical and chemical properties, plastics of renewable origin can be divided into two categories: ready-to-use and new materials. Currently, bio-based plastics can be either ready-to-use (e.g. bio-PE, bio-PET) or new materials (e.g. PLA, starch-based materials), while GHG-based plastics are mainly new materials such as PHA.
  Ready-to-use products are the same as fossil-based plastics currently in use (e.g., biobased PE, biobased PET) and their counterparts derived from renewable resources. They have exactly the same chemical and physical properties, which means they can be used seamlessly across the existing value chain before and after use, and provide the same level of performance. Packaging companies do not need to change their equipment or processes; Distributors and retailers get the same performance; It can be collected and recycled together with fossil-based raw materials in the same system.
Technically speaking, 60% of the plastic used for packaging purposes today can be replaced with ready-to-use technology.
  Some of the new materials have different chemical and physical properties than current fossil-based plastics (e.g. PLA, PHA). These new materials can be used in a wide range of packaging applications. For example, standard PLA is used in applications such as single-use food packaging, yogurt jars, or plastic bags. The barrier properties (for example, CO2 and oxygen barriers), mechanical and processing properties, etc. are not comparable to fossil raw materials, but additives can be used to improve their properties. New materials, such as PLA and PHA, can also theoretically be mechanically recycled, losing some of their physical properties after several cycles. Many new biobased polymers are currently being studied in the laboratory, and these polymers can be recycled without degrading their physical properties.