All Tomorrow’s Plastics: Data reveals which firms are innovating in bioplastics

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Europe and the US are at the forefront of innovation in plastic recycling and alternative plastics technologies, a new study published by the European Patent Office (EPO) has shown.

Europe and the US each accounted for about 30% of patenting activity worldwide in these sectors between 2010 and 2019, a combined total of 60%. Within Europe, the report found that the UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium stood out due to specialisation in both plastic recycling and bioplastic technologies, while Germany as the top patent applicant among European countries, lacks specialisation in these fields.

The report, entitled Patents for tomorrow’s plastics: Global innovation trends in recycling, circular design and alternative sources, also revealed that the cosmetics and detergents sector is innovating most intensively in bioplastics, with the UK’s Unilever among the top ten patent applicants in this field.

“While plastics are essential to the economy, plastic pollution is threatening ecosystems all over the planet,” said EPO President António Campinos. “The good news is that innovation can help us to address this challenge by enabling the transition to a fully circular model. This study offers key insights into a range of promising new technologies that foster the reusability, recyclability and biodegradability of plastic products. It highlights Europe’s contribution to innovation in this sector, but shows that much more can be done to turn pioneering European research into inventions and to bring them to market.”

Read more: 20 companies produce 55% of global plastic waste, research reveals

The study made a comprehensive analysis of the innovation trends for the period 2010 to 2019 that are driving the transition to a circular economy for plastics and looked at the number of international patent families (IPFs), each of which represents an invention for which patent applications have been filed at two or more patent offices worldwide.

It revealed that of all recycling technologies, the fields of chemical and biological recycling methods generated the highest level of patenting activity in that ten-year period, accounting for 9,000 IPFs in total - double that of mechanical recycling, the most common method of plastic recycling.

While the patenting of standard chemical methods, such as cracking and pyrolysis, peaked in 2014, emerging technologies such as biological methods using living organisms (1,500 IPFs) or plastic-to-monomer recycling (2,300 IPFs) have brought with them new possibilities to degrade polymers and produce virgin-like plastics.

In terms of bioplastics inventions, the study found that healthcare is by far the most active industry with more than 19,000 IPFs from 2010-19. However, the cosmetics and detergents sector was named as the most intensely innovative in this field. In cosmetics and detergents, the ratio of bioplastics IPFs to conventional plastics IPFs is 1:3, compared to only 1:5 in the healthcare sector.

The packaging, electronics and textiles sectors were also mentioned as being significant contributors to innovation in bioplastics.

Read more: An innovative solution to the problem of plastic waste

With 1,654 IPFs - a global share of 2.9% - the UK, was placed at number 7 in a global country ranking and at number 3 in Europe after Germany and France. A UK-specific ranking of top bioplastics applicants placed Unilever in top position and British American Tobacco and Invista Textiles in second and third place. 

The study also highlighted the significant potential in alternative technologies focused on new plastic designs that make recycling easier, an area that has developed exponentially in recent years. These technologies have potential applications in aerospace, construction, transportation, wind turbines and microelectronics.

The rapid growth of patenting in these fields was found to have been driven almost entirely by innovation in dynamic covalent bonding – an approach allowing for novel designs of durable plastic materials capable of self-repairing. 

While Japan has a strong lead in this field, most of the inventions coming from universities and public research organisations in this field originate from European and US research institutions.

The report also looked at the especially significant role that research played in chemical and biological recycling, with nearly 20% of inventions originating from universities and public research organisations. Most of these research facilities were based in Europe and the US, each with 29%.

However, Europe was also found to be the only major innovation hub to contribute a larger share of the chemical and biological recycling inventions from upstream research (29%) than overall in the field (26%). Meanwhile, US companies had generated four times as many IPFs in chemical and biological recycling as their European counterparts - 338 and 84 respectively - suggesting that Europe, despite being active in fundamental research, is not exploiting its full potential when it comes to transferring these technologies to industry.

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