[ THE EVIDENCE ]

Don’t take our word for it

Independent scientists have tested this technology for two decades — government researchers, university labs, and accredited test houses on three continents. Here is what they actually found, in their own words.

U.S. EPA researchers

The same plastic, side by side

Two scientists at the EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory in Cincinnati — Dr. Endalkachew Sahle-Demessie and Dr. Bineyam Mezgebe — weathered ordinary polypropylene film alongside identical film containing the kind of catalyst BioBottles® use. Same plastic, same chamber, same sunlight and rain cycles. The only difference was the catalyst.

Their conclusion: “Neat PP showed little or no changes, PP-with pro-oxidant filler degraded rapidly.”The treated film “embrittle, crack and break into pieces and powder within two weeks of weathering.”

The detail that matters most is what they measured next. Both the melting point and the crystallinity of the treated plastic fell — the signature of the polymer chains themselves being cut, not merely the film breaking into smaller bits. The rinse water afterwards contained dissolved, water-soluble organic material that came out of the plastic.

This was research published by EPA scientists. The presentation carries a standard disclaimer that it does not represent EPA policy and that mention of trade names is not an endorsement by the agency.

Jordi Labs, United States

“It simply controls the rate”

The most common objection to this technology is that the additive just shatters plastic faster, creating microplastics sooner. An American polymer laboratory with more than forty years in regulatory and failure testing was asked to review that question independently.

Their finding was that the reviewed conclusion is “scientifically sound”, and specifically that oxidation “would occur in the absence of” the additive at all — ordinary plastic oxidises and falls apart anyway. The additive“does not therefore lead through oxidation to the fragmentation of the material – it simply controls the rate of oxidation”, carrying the material down to a size microbes can consume rather than leaving fragments behind.

Measured results

What the test houses recorded

92.74%

biodegradation in 180 days — Intertek, testing to the ASTM D6954 standard. The same specimen also passed tests for ecotoxicity and prohibited metals.

45 months

to complete bioassimilation under real outdoor weathering, in a four-year study at Gdynia Maritime University — with 81.6% reached at 39 months.

90×

faster than ordinary plastic under the same conditions, reported by researchers at Queen Mary University of London.

A note of honesty about that first number: a carbon-evolution test can never reach 100%, because some of the material becomes water and living biomass rather than the CO₂ the instrument counts. Anyone claiming 100% in such a test is misreading it.

Four years at sea

Tested in seawater, not just in a lab

OXOMAR, a four-year project funded by the French government, put this technology through four independent laboratories to answer two questions: does it actually biodegrade in the sea, and does anything toxic come out of it?

They reported that these plastics “biodegrade in seawater and do so with a significantly higher efficiency than conventional plastics”, that the catalyst was “of crucial importance in the degradation process”, and that the best-performing formulation showed “no toxic effects under our experimental conditions”. Biodegradation was demonstrated both by a single cultured bacterium and by a natural community of marine microorganisms.

The distinction that matters

Fragmenting is not the same as breaking down

Ordinary plastic becomes brittle and falls apart in the open environment in as little as four to eight weeks. It does not disappear. Its fragments keep the same enormous molecular weight, far too large for any microbe to eat, so they persist for centuries getting steadily smaller. That is where microplastics come from.

In September 2024 the Lambton Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Ontario reviewed the literature and put the difference plainly:“oxo-degradable plastics create microplastics, but oxo-biodegradable plastics do not.” The first is ordinary plastic with no catalyst. The second is what BioBottles® are. Recent studies they cite found the end point of the process is a wax, and that “microplastics are not formed during the degradation of the film containing the” catalyst.

It is the molecular weight that decides the outcome — not how small the pieces look.

What we do not claim

The limits, stated plainly

This is not compostable packaging. Composting standards describe a different process in an industrial facility, and BioBottles® are not sold for it.

It is not a reason to litter. The best outcome for any bottle is still to be reused or recycled — these are recyclable in ordinary streams. This technology exists for the plastic that escapes anyway, which no collection system ever recovers.

Nobody can put an exact date on it.Real environments vary in heat, light and oxygen, so the honest answer to “how long?” is a range from studies, not a number on a label.

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Note for California residents: California law restricts the use of terms such as “biodegradable,” “degradable,” or “decomposable” in the marketing of plastic products sold in California. Descriptions of published research on this page report the findings and wording of those studies. The environmental statements on this site are not intended to apply to products sold in California.