Hainan issues notice on electronic code of biodegradable plastic products 
On September 30, 2021, Department of Ecology and Environment of Hainan Province, China issued a notice on strengthening the management of electronic code of whole biodegradable plastic products. The purpose of the notice is to strengthen the management and supervision of disposable plastic products distribution and to improve the related application requirements for the electronic code of whole biodegradable plastic products. The notice stipulates requirements for plastic product manufacturing enterprises, such as notification of relevant products and biodegradability that meets the requirements of relevant standards.
The following are the main contents.
Companies to submit notification
Notification of whole biodegradable plastic products shall be made by the manufacturer of whole biodegradable plastic products. Manufacturers of raw materials of whole biodegradable plastic (including modified plastics manufacturers) and product sellers are not required to submit notifications.
Products to be notified
The whole biodegradable plastic products included in the following list are required to submit notification. The substitutes of the listed products to be announced in the future also need to be notified. Prepackages and substitutes that do not contain whole biodegradable plastic do not require notification.
- “The First List of Non-biodegradable Plastic Products Banned for Production, Sale and Use in Hainan Province.
http://hnsthb.hainan.gov.cn/xxgk/0200/0202/hjywgl/trhjgl/202003/t20200320_2764481.html - “The Second List of Non-biodegradable Plastic Products Banned for Production, Sale and Use in Hainan Province”
http://qionghai.hainan.gov.cn/zfxxgkzl/bm/gongsj/gkml/202108/t20210826_3041179.html
Requirements for notification
1. Requirements for whole biodegradability performance
The product to be notified shall not contain non-biodegradable polymer components, and the biodegradation performance shall conform to the relevant technical requirements of “General Requirements for Biodegradable Plastic Products” (DB46/T 505-2020), which is the local standard of Hainan Province. When submitting the notification, the product composition, biodegradation rate, relative biodegradation rate and other indicators should be reported factually, and the biodegradation performance inspection report should be submitted.
2. Requirements for physical performance indicators
| Product | Underlying Standards |
| Shopping bag | Biodegradable plastic shopping bags (gb/t 38082-2019) |
| Plastic bag for daily use | Plastic commodity bags (GB/T 24984-2010) |
| Paper and plastic composite packaging bags | Shopping bags (BB/T 0039-2013) |
| Garbage bag | Plastic refuse sack (gb/t 24454-2009) |
| Cutlery | General requirement of degradable disposable tableware (gb 18006.3-2020) |
In addition, when submitting the notification, the product quality index declaration must be submitted, and the physical performance test report and the product quality consent form must be attached.
Management of the use of electronic codes
After the product notification has been approved, an electronic code is automatically generated when the notifier input the required information. The electronic code shall be printed on the whole biodegradable plastic product or on the smallest packaging. The information that can be read from the electronic code must match the corresponding whole biodegradable product.
The original of the above content can be viewed at the following URL (in simplified Chinese).
http://hnsthb.hainan.gov.cn/xxgk/0200/0202/hjywgl/trhjgl/202109/t20210930_3069652.html
