The goal of this document is to encourage the development and use of bioplastics that are healthy and sustainable. To be truly sustainable requires attention to a number of key principles:
- Reduce the amount of material, product and packaging used
- Eliminate single-use products that can be neither recycled nor composted
- Avoid fossil-fuel-based materials in favor of materials and products derived from renewable feedstocks
- Address sustainability across the life cycle of the material: the growing of the feedstock, manufacturing of the polymer and final product, using the product and reclaiming the material at the end of its original use.
- Define sustainability to include issues of environment, health, and social and economic justice.
- Design and use products that are reusable, recyclable or compostable.
- Encourage agricultural systems that are sustainable for farmers, the environment, farm workers’ and communities.
- Support small- to mid-sized family owned and operated farms.
- Do not use genetically modified organisms in agricultural feedstock production.
- Use chemicals that meet the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.
- Avoid engineered nanomaterials and chemicals that have not been tested for environmental and public health effects across the life cycle.
- Decentralize production and buy local to reduce the environmental footprint of production, transportation, and consumption.
