Degradable plastic bags – the solution?
For those of you interested in economics, you might like to know that ‘one use’ plastic bags are called a ‘market failure’. This is due to the fact that their pricing does not account for external factors such as the impact of litter on wildlife, or the monetary cost to the community to clean up plastic bag pollution.
In Australia alone, 30-35 million plastic bags end up as litter rather than in landfill every year, according to 2007 figures from a report on ‘the investigation of options to reduce the impacts of plastic bags‘.
Degradable and biodegradable plastic bags have been touted as the solution to this problem by a number of prominent supermarkets. However, there is limited evidence that they make a positive difference and more evidence to the contrary! The amount of time plastic bags remain in the environment as litter is unclear but the following facts give you some idea of their possible effects.
The most common degradable bags, oxo-degradable bags, have a ‘pro-degradent’ which causes fast break down into fragments. These then remain in the environment and may take a very long time to completely degrade. The impact of these bags as litter may thus be greater than for a normal plastic bag, which generally remains as one product, not fragments.
Biodegradable plastic bags are made from a mixture of polyethene and starch products and in the right conditions, will break down into elements like carbon dioxide, water and methane. To be considered degradable, these must compost within 12 weeks and fully biodegrade within 6 months. This means they survive long enough to pose a threat to animals if littered, as they may be mistaken for food.
If biodegradable bags are littered and caught in trees, like the plastic bags in the image below, they are unlikely to be exposed to soil microorganisms which assist breakdown and so pose the same problems as regular ‘one-use’ plastic bags.
Plastic Bag Tree in NYC
There are also questions raised about whether there is any benefit of degradable plastic bags even if they are properly disposed and end up in landfill. The Australian government published a report ‘The impact of degradable plastic bags in Australia’, which found that biodegradable plastics are unlikely to degrade in landfill as the microorganisms needed to help the break down, are not found in the dry anaerobic (oxygen deprived) conditions normally found in landfill.
The same report concluded that reusable bags have a lower environmental impact and gave better overall performance than either conventional or degradable ‘one-use’ bags, regardless of the degradability.
So the message is clear – reuse is the better option for the environment.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Thank you for the useful information. I have wondered about these new “biodegradable” bags. Instead, I use your envirosax and give them as gifts to encourage the same. Your product is in my blog today. Hence, the visit to see what is new. By the way, we live out in the country near our county landfill. If you take the tree in your photo and multiply it by the hundreds in the wetlands next to the landfill, you know what the area a mile down my road and around the corner looks like. Thank you for your care for the Earth.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:56 am
Thank you for spreading the word about our product. Sounds like you experience first hand what single use plastic bags are doing to our environment. Hopefully it won’t take more “plastic bag trees” for people to consider reusable products.
- The Envirosax Team
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 am
While I support Envirosax and use your bags regularly, I think you should also acknowledge that reusable bags are not a viable option for things like trash and picking up dog poop. In these cases, maybe biodegradable plastic would be a better if not ideal choice over regular plastic and you could support your customers making that choice.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:47 am
It is good information!
July 15th, 2009 at 4:01 am
Good blog!
thanks
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:55 am
where can i purchase these bags [sacks] zip code 33445
or boca raton fl? thank you
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
where can i purchase these sacks 33445 zip code area. thank you
August 7th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Are these available anywhere in Ottawa, Canada?
August 26th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Isn’t there a micro-organism that eats plastic? I thought I read that recently!
August 26th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Hi Chris, a high school student, Daniel Burd, immersed ground plastic in a yeast solution that encouraged microbial growth, and then isolated the most productive organisms.The preliminary results were encouraging, so he kept at it, selecting out the most effective strains and interbreeding them. After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures Burd was able to achieve a 43 percent degradation of plastic in six weeks. However try getting these to eat the Great Pacific Ocean Gargage Patch! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAShtolieg&feature=related
October 5th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Good blog!
thanks
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August 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Biodegradable plastic and packaging is a modern necessity for our ever-endangered environment.
Now PLA has been used to line the indoors of Paper Cups in place of the oil based lining additional usually used, create Plastic Cups, Plates, Carrier Bags, Food Packaging and even Nappies.
Eco Pure is our proprietary blend of organic materials that does not modify the base resin to which it is added.
Thanks a lot for your information
December 3rd, 2010 at 4:43 pm
[...] http://blog.envirosax.com/2009/05/degradable-plastic-bags-the-solution/ [...]
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