Bioplastics are a form of plastics derived from renewable biomass sources, corn starch, other kinds of starch, vegetable oil or microbiota, rather than fossil fuel plastics, which are derived from petroleum.

Bioplastics are based on the principle of the natural cycle of matter and allow an intelligent, cascading usage of natural resources without waste (zero waste) and without emissions of greenhouse gases (zero emission).

Bioplastics differ from conventional plastics in two important features:

• the use of renewable resources for their production;
• their biodegradability / compostability.

For the first feature standardised measures for evaluation do not exist – please also read the explanations on bioplastics. Therefore it is subject to individual interpretation how big the share of renewable resources in a plastic product has to be in order to be called a bioplastics.

No standard is available to approve this, however scientific methods exist to measure the "renewable carbon" in a given product.

For biodegradability and compostability scientific methods have been developed to accurately prove these qualities in terms of plastics: The European norm EN 13432 was introduced in Europe in 2000. As a so-called harmonised standard it is valid in all EU member states.