Are they so called because they reduce to very small pieces and do no harm whatsoever to any part of the environment, possibly they are even beneficial? Or are they made from ordinary harmful plastic?
James Petri ● 1676d21 Comments
They degrade into their chemical constituents so they cease to be plastic.
David McLoughlin ● 1676d
Basically yes! What you need is compostable bags which do break down properly, but care is needed because the sellers are often deliberately opaque in their descriptions and hide what their bags are actually made from.
Chris Jenkins ● 1676d
I refuse to use them unless absolutely necessary.
Juliet Hogg ● 1676d
And as for those horrible, black, thick plastic bin bags, I think they should be banned altogether and only biodegradable ones available.
Agree Juliet.
Janice Evans ● 1676d
Thank you everybody for your speedy replies and full of information. I know needn’t worry at the many tens of thousands of tiny bits of coloured plastic that I have strewn across my flowerbeds!
James Petri ● 1676d
I think you should be looking at compostable too - some magazines such as the Kew one, Which?, New Scientist and the RIBA Journal are now marked as compostable and have a slightly milky colour. Waitrose has several different types marked as compostable - and they don't look the same and shouldn't be put in with the plastic bag recycling if you can't compost them at home or use them in your food waste caddy. I tend to use them in the food waste caddy but not in the wormery and only because they have not been avoided in the shopping. There is nothing to say how long it takes to compost compared to the rest of the contents of the wormery and I got really fed up just with tea-bags that didn't compost and which we were told were just stuck together with plastic glue when we see whole little net bags were left uncomposted and were being used by birds to line their nests.I now try and avoid anything that might not compost - whatever it is advertised as. Compostable bags used to all be marked with the seedling logo and that they were to BS EN 13432. I don't believe the legislation and definition exists on Biodegradable or on how long or how it disintegrates or disappears. You may well find you are sieving out stuff you don't want months later. There's plenty of obfuscation.Riverford have had quite a battle trying to find packaging to suit their customers.https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/features/packaging-plastic/green-packaging-whats-differenceI think the bags you were referring to which fell into little bits were either photodegradable or oxodegradable!Is there any point in using biodegradable black bags when unrecycled waste in sent to EfW? I think it is more important to look at the start of the waste hierarchy and avoid unnecessary packaging, overbuying and making so much waste in the first place. The waste hierarchy officially begins with Reduce - although refusing unwanted and unnecessary whether billed as 'free' or not should probably come first and Repair and Repurpose be inserted with Reuse before Recycle.To those who complain about a lack of movement in Recycling figures - if you reduce the amount of waste you make altogether recycling isn't likely to go up is it if what you waste is not actually recyclable? For instance buying a smaller loaf of bread or learning to manage it better by buying a bigger one and freezing half of it instead of wasting it and recycling it brings recycling figures down. A lot of games can be played with figures and definitions to suit situations.
Philippa Bond ● 1676d
Always seems a bit late to tackle this from the consumer end. Where are the plastic factories and what are they doing, if anything, to change their businesses and start making, for instance, stronger paper sacks for many items?
Vivienne Cox ● 1676d
Paper although it composts brilliantly - and is especially good if it escapes into the wild (remember all those plastic bags which used to 'decorate' trees and hedgerows for ages advertising their supermarkets) - needs a tremendous amount of water in manufacture.https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/it-takes-more-than-3-gallons-of-water-to-make-a-single-sheet-of-paper/258838/Refill shops are a great idea as you take your own reusable containers to be filled and can often choose smaller or larger amounts than you'd get in packets/bottles. I believe there is one in Chiswick. Choosing items in truly easily recyclable packaging too.Most packaging is now made of a single material. There are some brilliantly innovative boxes which unfold to flatten or have lids that clip closed without using any additional material.France has brought in a law and now doesn't have all their fruit and vegetables packaged in plastic.There are some very good uses for plastic - it just isn't needed everywhere.
Surely 'Biodegradable plastic' degrades or downgrades or degenerates or breaks up or becomes brittle with age ~ and therefore with time shatters into smaller pieces which pieces again become even smaller micro-plastic particles undiscernable to the eye tho microbes will see these 'biodegradable plastic pieces' as hills and mountains in their small worlds ~ won't they?
Bobbie Carnegie ● 1676d
https://eradicateplastic.com/what-are-the-problems-with-biodegradable-plastic/
https://www.kqed.org/science/1941258/after-3-years-in-the-ocean-these-supposedly-biodegradable-bags-are-still-intact
There's a lot of greenwashing.https://packagingeurope.com/the-debate-biodegradable-and-compostable-plastic-bags/3678.article
Philippa Bond ● 1675d
Biodegradable just doesn't look good at all with so much being found particularly in the sea still intact.India amongst quite a few other countries banned plastic bags. As a result a lot of fake biodegradable bags appeared on the market. For many countries like India where sudden downpours occur plastic bags block drains and malaria spreading mosquitoes breed in the puddles of still water exacerbating the situation.
It's not just 'plastic' per se that's a pest it's plastic plus coatings over it of aluminium and other metallic and chemical-added linings to make the plastic even more impermeable as with so many confectionary packages where we see shiny metal surfaces inside our bag of hand-cooked crinkly beef 'n ale flavoured potato crisp packages.
Bobbie Carnegie ● 1675d
At least we can recognise some of that plastic like the crisp packets as we can do the 'scrunch' test and if it unravels it fails and goes into black bin but how many people tear off the plastic wraps where there is a picture of a zip fastener top to bottom on bottles of liquid soap and drinks so that the plastic bottles underneath can be recycled?How often is EfW being referred to as 'recycling'? There's very little you can't incinerate but it is expensive in gate fees and expensive to the environmentBut it's the lack of definition of biodegradable that is the problem and that is scandalous because many of the public just believe that it won't stay intact and won't cause problems in the oceans or in landfill when it does.https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/46066/biodegradables-will-not-solve-chinas-plastics-crisis/https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-eastasia-stateless/84075f56-biodegradable-plastics-report.pdf
https://resource.co/article/sell-fresh-uncut-produce-loose-says-wrap-report?If the French can do this why can't we? They've passed a law.The article is interesting as plastic doesn't necessarily prolong the life of the contents. Buying the amount you need and storing it well is better.Only 9% of plastic waste globally is recycled successfully as many countries do not have sophisticated recycling or collection facilities. The amount of that plastic waste has doubled in the two decades.Surfers Against Sewage will tell you who the worst polluters are as they survey this. Buy just the amount you want, choose more carefully and waste less and make your views known. Look for the shops and supermarkets which sell fresh and loose where you can refill your own containers.
Philippa Bond ● 1670d
https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/wrap-to-launch-plastic-bag-recycling-campaign/With so many sorts around I really don't know how they are going to get a good recycling stream here!
Some of these innocent looking bags EG I believe salad bags are actually composed of three different layers of different plastics.They can be recycled - sort of - but only by returning them to their original form - oil - then making them into plastics again. Not surprisingly this is rather a resource heavy process, though I believe it uses somewhat less energy than creating plastic from crude oil.Recently someone told me they made special car journeys to recycle plastic bags. Please don't do this: it is far more harmful than putting the bags in your black bin for incineration. Of course if you're walking/cycling to a recycling hub or would be visiting anyway for other reasons by all means take your bags with you!Far and away the biggest impact most of us can make is by reducing waste, especially food and textiles. Both of these have very high carbon intensity and both can be recycled from your doorstep if you live in a house in LB Hounslow.A startlingly large proportion of our black bin waste is food, and it's really crackers that this is not completely recycled.
Guy Lambert ● 1670d
Thanks Guy. It is so frustrating after all these years to still so often be stuck at the wrong end of the simple waste hierarchy of Reduce Reuse Recycle. is clear that the answer is still with REDUCING rather than with Recycling. I see Tesco is putting Remove in front of Reduce as they remove a lot of plastic. Refuse also goes in front to avoid unwanted bags and 'free (but they cost the earth)' gifts.I see more properties now have food waste bins. This is a great way to save money from finding out what you actually waste and learning how to avoid doing so. Buying less fresh short life food and having a good stock of essential long life items is a good start. Then if you're asked out your catering plsns ate more flexible.There are lots of websites with use-it-up recipes inclufing those of the supermarkets and Love Food Hate Waste. There are nobend of things that can be eaten cold or go on toast or in baked potatoes!
Philippa Bond ● 1669d
https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/bpf-hits-back-at-wrap-over-food-waste/
Philippa Bond ● 1668d