Symphony Environmental, EPI and Wells Plastics said they decided to publish what they call a "scientific dossier" on their respective websites "in the interest of informed debate and to deal with the confusion in the marketplace".
The dossier was originally drawn up by the three companies earlier this year. It was presented to the government through the British Plastics Federation as a response to a report on oxo-biodegradable plastics published in March last year by Loughborough University for the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), then under Labour control.
The trio said it wished to publicise its counter-arguments to the Loughborough report, which it said "raised a number of concerns for those who specialise in the technology".
The Loughborough report argued among other things that oxo-biodegradable plastics should be incinerated rather than sent for recycling and that the term 'biodegradable' was "virtually meaningless" to consumers.
However Symphony claimed the Loughborough team had "no expertise" in the field of oxo-biodegradable plastic technology and that many of the conclusions drawn in its report were "not supported by the evidence".
