The Hype and Realities of Bioplastics, or Bio-based Polymers: Bio-Based vs. Biodegradable vs. Compostable, and Other Facts About the Bioplastics Industry

    Bioplastics company CEO Vishal Vivek writes in Entrepreneur about five misleading claims by bioplastics companies. Though he still believes in the value and usefulness of bioplastics, he thinks much of the industry is overhyped.

Claim 1: “Our packaging is compostable”

     Just because a cup or packaging material is listed as compostable does not mean it will be composted, even if you try to do it at home. Most home composters won’t reach the required temperatures (55 to 58°C) to break down the polylactic acid (PLA), the most common type of compostable bioplastic in today’s market. In order to decompose PLA, an industrial composting facility with controlled heat, humidity, and microbial activity is required. 30 states have three or fewer plastic composting facilities. Ten states have none. I know of one near me that I sometimes hike past on a known trail. Most PLA ends up in landfills after it is discarded in regular trash, where it may take 100 years to decompose.

 

Claim 2: “Our product is a bioplastic.”

     Bioplastic may mean one of three things: bio-based, biodegradable, or compostable.

“Bio-PE and bio-PET are made from sugarcane instead of petroleum. But they are chemically identical to conventional polyethylene and PET. They do not biodegrade. They persist for centuries. They fragment into the same microplastics. The only thing “bio” about them is where the carbon came from.”

     He notes that even using the word “bioplastic” has been discouraged by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) since 2012. They recommend using the term bio-based polymer instead. However, that recommendation has generally not been heeded, even by the industry.

 

Claim 3: “Our material is plant-based, so it is safe.”

     This is false and has been proven to be so, as he explains below. This is mainly due to the fact that both fossil plastics and bio-based plastics use similar additives, and there are several thousand different additives used in the industry.:

“Zimmermann et al., in a 2020 study published in Environment International, tested 43 bio-based and biodegradable food-contact products against 30 conventional plastic samples.”

“Two out of three bioplastic products triggered toxic responses in at least one lab assay. The toxicity profiles were statistically indistinguishable from those of petroleum plastics. Some PLA and starch-based products contained more than 20,000 distinct chemical features.”

“The problem is not the plant, but the additives added to the plant-based polymers to create usable plastic products.”

“These additives — the plasticizers, colorants, stabilizers and processing chemicals — give bioplastics their functional properties, and are quite often the same chemicals used in conventional plastics. Nobody regulated them differently just because the base resin came from a crop, for instance, corn.”

     He notes that the toxicity of bioplastics depends on what additives are being used. Many are known to be toxic, and even more have had no toxicity testing done on them.

 

Claim 4: “The biggest plastic users are massively increasing their bioplastic use.”

     While the use of bioplastics is growing, so is the use of plastic made from fossil fuels. According to European Bioplastics’ 2025 market data, the share of bioplastics use in the plastic industry as a whole has remained steady at 0.5%,1.67 million tonnes against roughly 431 million tonnes. He says that if a company announces that they will increase its use of bioplastics, one should ask by how much in weight rather than in percentage since increasing a tiny amount by, say, 200% is still a tiny amount.

 

Claim 5: “Our product meets all applicable standards.”

     He notes that many rules and standards are out-of-date and need to be updated. He says the EU has been at the forefront and now treats bioplastics the same as fossil plastics. Its single-use plastic ban applies to all plastics regardless of feedstocks. The real issue is what happens after it is used. Personally, I do not like single-use plastic bag bans, having endured one for a while. I ended up collecting a lot of paper bags I did not need. Thus, I may disagree with his statement below, although I do agree that all plastics should be treated the same since they all have toxic components and a lot of compostable plastics are not being composted.

“I believe the bioplastics industry needs mandatory regulation. Not because I want more rules. But because voluntary self-policing has let too many actors hide behind good branding while the infrastructure, the chemistry and the accountability remain absent.”

    

Three Guidelines for Bioplastics Producers

     Finally, the author gives three guidelines for bioplastics producers, particularly in India and other Southeast Asian countries.

1)        Make bioplastic from waste – he recommends using crop residues, of which there are quite a lot in places like India, where an estimated 500 million tonnes are produced each year. In the fall, these are often burned, producing smoke and smog that is so bad it closes down schools.

2)        If you sell compostable, invest in composting – he says if you sell compostable plastics, then investing in composting infrastructure makes sense and helps to secure an end-place for the product to go, preferably near the point of production and the point of use.

3)        Be an advocate for “no plastic, less plastic, better plastic” – he says that reducing plastic use should matter more than replacement of fossil plastic with bioplastic. Less plastic, especially less single-use plastic, is better than different plastic. I guess I can brag that I reuse my so-called single-use plastic bags many times over, for shopping in places where you need to bring your own bag, for things I need to carry, and for cleaning my cats’ litter pans. When they are used for the latter or if they get holes in them, I discard them.

 

     He closes with the following:

“…belief without accountability is just marketing. And marketing without infrastructure, without chemical transparency and without binding standards is just greenwashing. The first step for every entrepreneur in this industry is to accept the flaws in our models and our language so we can start correcting them one step at a time.”

 

  

 

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I sell a sustainable product I believe in, but my industry is misleading consumers. Here’s the truth. Vishal Vivek. Entrepreneur. August 12, 2026. I sell a sustainable product I believe in, but my industry is misleading consumers. Here’s the truth.