Landfill
INGEO DOES NOT BIODEGRADE IN A CONVENTIONAL LANDFILL.
Neither does anything else. The reality is that today's waste reduction systems capture just a small amount of the total plastic flowing into landfills, and options for recycling and composting are limited. Then because a landfill does not offer the climate necessary to compost, it is unlikely that any product will decompose efficiently. That said, if both biobased Ingeo products and oil-based plastic products end up in a landfill, the Ingeo products are already better because they contributed less greenhouse gases and used less nonrenewable energy when they were made, something oil-based products cannot achieve.
DOES INGEO RELEASE METHANE IN A LANDFILL?
We are near completing a study regarding what happens to Ingeo in a landfill, and below are some of the initial results.
We considered two extremes & had them quantitatively assessed by the independent 3rd party authority OWS (Organic Waste Systems, Belgium).
| 1. What happens to Ingeo under accelerated landfill conditions? |
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2. Can Ingeo be forced to generate methane? |
1. What happens to Ingeo under accelerated landfill conditions?
BACKGROUND
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ASTM D5526-94 is the standard test method for determining the biodegradability of a material in a (somewhat optimized) landfill environment.
- Test conditions:
- Temperature: 21º C
- Sample size: pellets
- Duration: 6 months (up to 12-24)
- Inoculum to sample ratio: 150g/2g
- Samples:
RESULTS
At the end of 160 days OWS stated, “Biodegradation has not started for any of the Ingeo test samples.” This is similar to the behavior of traditional plastics under landfill conditions.
2. Can Ingeo be forced to generate methane?
BACKGROUND
- ASTM D5511-02 is the standard test method for determining the biodegradability of plastics through high-rate dry anaerobic batch fermentation with significantly accelerated conditions.
- Test conditions:
- Temperature: 35º C
- Sample size: pellets
- Duration: 15 days (up to 30 days)
- Inoculum to sample ratio: 1000g/2g
- Samples:
RESULTS
At the end of 160 days OWS stated, "“The Ingeo grades tested would be poor feedstocks for a mesophilic biogasification facility.” This means that even when forced, Ingeo is a poor generator of methane under accelerated landfill conditions.
