Impact Solutions can carry out a standard method for the determination of the ultimate anaerobic biodegradation of plastic materials under high-solids conditions BS EN ISO 15985.  This is representative of systems for the anaerobic bio-gasification of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste.

The test method is designed to be an optimised simulation of an intensive anaerobic digestion process and determines the ultimate biodegradability of a test material under high-solids anaerobic digestion conditions.  The test material is mixed with the inoculum and introduced into a static digestion vessel where it is intensively digested under optimum temperature and moisture conditions for a test period of 15 d or longer until a plateau in the biodegradation has been reached.  During the anaerobic biodegradation of the test material, methane, carbon dioxide, water, mineral salts, and new microbial cellular constituents (biomass) are the ultimate biodegradation products.  The biogas (methane and carbon dioxide) evolved is continuously monitored or measured at regular intervals in test and blank vessels to determine the cumulative biogas production.

The percentage biodegradation is given by the ratio of the amount of biogas evolved from the test material to the maximum theoretical amount of biogas that can be produced from the test material.