{"id":13923,"date":"2026-01-15T00:00:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/?p=13923"},"modified":"2026-01-15T11:24:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T11:24:50","slug":"the-mulch-dilemma-are-biodegradable-plastics-really-the-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/the-mulch-dilemma-are-biodegradable-plastics-really-the-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"The mulch dilemma: are biodegradable plastics really the solution ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>AUTHOR : <\/b><em>Takunda Y. Chitaka, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Bordeaux \u2013 ISM, France<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Guido Sonnemann, Professor, University of Bordeaux \u2013 ISM, France<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b><\/b><strong>The agricultural sector faces a critical juncture: how to maintain productivity benefits while addressing plastic pollution. Within the SOPAM project, a Life Cycle Assessment was conducted to evaluate potential environmental impacts of biodegradable film. The research team explains.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most comprehensive method available to evaluate potential environmental impacts across multiple stages of a product\u2019s life span, dissecting a product from cradle to grave, ie from raw material extraction to end-of-life management and final emissions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Methodological framework: Life Cycle Assessment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>LCA has four iterative phases: goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory (LCI), life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and life cycle interpretation (ISO, 2006).<\/p>\n<p>The French SOPAM project conducted a cradle-to-grave LCA following ISO 14044 standards, comparing four functionally equivalent mulch films for melon cultivation (transparent recyclable polyethylene (PE) (25 \u00b5m), transparent biodegradable (BD) (20 \u00b5m), smoked recyclable PE (25 \u00b5m), smoked BD (15 \u00b5m)), with the following parameters:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Functional Unit:<\/strong> Film required to cultivate 1 kg of food-grade melon, with fields trials representative of national conditions (France).<\/li>\n<li><strong>System Boundaries:<\/strong> From cradle-to-grave, including raw material acquisition, film manufacturing, transportation, and end-of-life management.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Impact Assessment:<\/strong> The \u201cEnvironmental Footprint 3.1\u201d methodology was employed, with 16 impact categories, including climate change, freshwater ecotoxicity, resource use and land use.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The product life cycle stages were informed by a combination of secondary data and primary data sources from relevant stakeholders. Secondary data was sourced from the \u201cEcoinvent v3.10\u201d database. The life cycles were modelled using the \u201cSimaPro LCA Software\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mepr_error\"><div class=\"zx-content-lock\">\n<div class='zx-dummy-content''>\n<p>There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn't anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"zx-content-lock-message\">\n<h6>Want to read more?<\/h6>\n<div>Full articles starting at \u20ac7.80\/month or buy juste one article at 1\u20ac<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/register\/one-time-read-the-mulch-dilemma-are-biodegradable-plastics-really-the-solution\/\">Pay 1\u20ac to read<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box\">\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-top\">\n<p>Get full access to all articles<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-bottom\">\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-bottom-left\">\n<p class=\"zx-offer-cost\"><span class=\"zx-of-price\">From \u20ac7.80<\/span>\/<span class=\"zx-of-duration\">monthly<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-bottom-right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/subscription\/\">Subscribe Now<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AUTHOR : Takunda Y. Chitaka, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Bordeaux \u2013 ISM, France Guido Sonnemann, Professor, University of Bordeaux \u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-13923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-regulations"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13947,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923\/revisions\/13947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}