Fits and starts

摘要

If you follow the plastics in the environment topic and you work in a field related to textile fibers, you likely know the European Commission recently issued its long-awaited guidelines on the Single-Use Plastics Directive. This latest update from the EC was much anticipated by some in the textile fiber industry, as it was expected to provide clarity once and for all (well at least until the SUPD is up for review again in 2027) on what is, and what is not, a plastic - or in this case a natural or non-natural polymer.Done and dusted, problem solved, right? Not so fast...So the primary goal of the SUPD is a noble one - to minimize plastic waste in the natural environment. There are many avenues that could lead to that end. And in the fiber space, many have been focused on developing more sustainable alternatives to those synthetic fibers that are particularly persistent in the environment.