Glossary term

Land use

The surface required to grow sufficient feedstock (land use) for today’s bioplastic production is less than 0.01 percent of the global agricultural area of 5 billion hectares. It is not yet foreseeable to what extent an increased use of food residues, non-food crops or cellulosic biomass (see also 1st/2nd/3rd generation feedstock) in bioplastics production might lead to an even further reduced land use in the future. [bM 04/09, 01/14]