The word "biodegradable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting on product packaging right now. For wet wipes and cleansing cloths, it's become almost a default marketing claim, appearing on everything from baby wipes to facial cleansing pads. But regulatory bodies on both sides of the Atlantic are asking harder questions, and so are consumers. If you're developing a wipes product in 2026, the gap between what you can claim and what you can prove has never mattered more.
What "Biodegradable" Actually Requires
Biodegradation isn't a single standard. It's a family of claims, each tied to specific conditions, timeframes, and testing protocols. A material that breaks down in a controlled industrial composting facility over 12 weeks is doing something meaningfully different from one that degrades in a marine environment or a landfill. Both might technically qualify as "biodegradable" under some definitions. Neither is interchangeable with the other.
The relevant testing frameworks include ISO 14855 (aerobic biodegradation under composting conditions); ISO 14851 and 14852, which measure aerobic biodegradability in aqueous media and apply specifically to plastics materials (their relevance to a given wipes substrate will depend on the material in question); and ASTM D5511, which tests anaerobic biodegradation under high-solids conditions, and ASTM D6400, which specifies compostability requirements for plastics. For aerobic compostability testing, ASTM D5338 is also worth noting. Each one measures different things. When a brand says a wipe is biodegradable, the honest question is: biodegradable according to which test, under which conditions, and at what percentage of conversion?
Flushable Is Not the Same as Biodegradable
This distinction matters enormously and still gets blurred in product development conversations. A flushable wipe needs to disintegrate quickly enough not to cause fatbergs or blockages in sewer systems. Biodegradability describes what happens further downstream, in treatment plants, aquatic environments, or soil.
The global nonwovens industry has its own guidelines here. INDA and EDANA jointly publish GD4, their Flushability Assessment Guidelines, which test for dispersibility, not biodegradation. Products that pass these guidelines are not automatically biodegradable. Treating them as equivalent is where many brands get into trouble.
Regulators are catching up. In the EU, new anti-greenwashing rules under the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive will apply from September 27, 2026. The rules specifically target generic environmental claims such as “eco-friendly,” “green,” or “kind to the planet” when brands cannot substantiate them with credible evidence. A separate Green Claims Directive, which would introduce more detailed requirements for substantiating and verifying environmental claims, remains pending after negotiations stalled in 2026. For wipes brands marketing into Europe, the message is clear: broad sustainability language increasingly needs evidence behind it, and the compliance deadline is now imminent.
The Material Science Side
Most conventional wet wipes use polyester or polypropylene-based nonwovens. These synthetic fibers are durable by design, which makes them effective as a substrate and problematic as an environmental claim. Switching to biodegradable substrates means working with materials like viscose (regenerated cellulose), lyocell (often under the brand name Tencel), cotton, or newer bio-based options like bamboo-derived fibers or seaweed-based nonwovens.
Each of these comes with its own processing considerations. Viscose biodegrades well but its manufacturing process has historically carried a significant environmental burden. Lyocell has better environmental credentials in production but costs more. Bamboo fiber is popular in marketing but the processing pathway from bamboo plant to finished nonwoven matters a great deal for how genuinely sustainable the end product actually is.
And then there's the substrate-to-formulation relationship. A biodegradable cloth carrier paired with a preservative system or fragrance that isn't compatible with degradation testing can compromise the whole claim. Product development for biodegradable wipes isn't just about sourcing a greener fabric; it's about evaluating the entire product system.
What Honest Labeling Looks Like
The most defensible approach in 2026 is specificity. Instead of "biodegradable," consider stating which standard the product was tested against, under what conditions, and at what percentage. "Certified home compostable to EN 13432" tells a consumer something real. "Biodegradable" on its own, increasingly, does not.
Third-party certification adds credibility that self-declaration can't. TÜV Austria offers several distinct certification marks for different end-of-life environments, including OK Biodegradable SOIL, OK Biodegradable WATER, OK Biodegradable MARINE, and both industrial and home compost variants. DIN CERTCO and BPI offer additional certification pathways. These aren't costless or quick to obtain, but they're a much stronger foundation for a marketing claim than internal testing alone, and choosing the right certification pathway depends on where your product is actually likely to end up.
For brands developing sustainable wipes, reusable cleansing cloths are also worth serious consideration. A well-designed reusable face pad that replaces hundreds of single-use alternatives sidesteps the biodegradation question almost entirely, and that story resonates with consumers who've grown skeptical of degradability claims.
Getting It Right From the Start
The science of biodegradable nonwovens is genuinely advancing. Better materials, more rigorous testing, and clearer standards are all moving in a useful direction. But the regulatory environment is tightening at roughly the same pace, which means brands that get ahead of the compliance curve now are in a better position than those retrofitting claims onto products designed without this in mind.
Building the right testing protocols, material choices, and labeling strategy into a wipes product from day one is far less expensive than revising them after launch. If you're working on a wipes concept, Crown Abbey works across the full nonwovens product development process, from substrate sourcing to finished product claims. Contact us to audit your product claims and get a clear picture of where your product genuinely stands before you go to market.
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