Without proper composting facilities, throwing away biodegradable
materials may actually be worse for the environment.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/garbage-biodegradable-earth-month.html
THE GIST:
* Technology is now available to make a diverse collection of
biodegradable products.
* The missing link is composting facilities that can process the waste.
* With such facilities, we could recover 300 times more of the
waste that now ends up in dumps.
In an effort to ease the Earth's pain in a sea of single-serve
containers, a growing number of companies are turning to biodegradable
packaging in everything from yogurt containers to junk mail to plastic
bags and more.
If we're going to keep throwing things away, the thinking goes: Why
not make waste that either disintegrates into nothing or turns into
something useful, like fertilizer?
These days, you can get biodegradable garbage bags, packing peanuts,
forks and spoons, water bottles and clothing. Just this year, SunChips
introduced compostable snack bags.
But even as the technology improves and new products arrive on store
shelves, biodegradable packaging is not a cure-all for our waste
problems, experts say. Biodegradable packaging that ends up in a
landfill instead of a composting facility, for example, can be worse
for the environment than ordinary plastic.
"The public looks at biodegradable as something magical," even though
the term is mostly meaningless, said Ramani Narayan, a chemical
engineer at Michigan State University in East Lansing, and science
consultant to the Biodegradable Plastics Institute. "This is the most
used and abused and misused word in our dictionary right now."
planet green logo
Jaymi Heimbuch "Biodegradable" is a tricky term, and when it comes to
calling products green, it can be downright deceiving, providing a
false sense to consumers that they're making smarter choices. How do
you crack the code? When it comes to a "biodegradable" product, the
three things to keep in mind are: How long it will take to biodegrade;
under what conditions it will break down; and how what's left behind
will interact with the environment. Biodegradable products are
definitely a part of our vision for a better future, but many aren't
quite perfect just yet.
- Jaymi Heimbuch, Tech and Transport
"Simply calling something biodegradable and not defining in what
environment it is going to be biodegradable and in what time period it
is going to degrade is very misleading and deceptive," he added.
Every year, Americans throw away 250 million tons of waste, according
to the Environmental Protection Agency. Two-thirds of that material
ends up in landfills.
And the trash piles keep growing: The United States consumed 57
percent more stuff in 2000 than we did in 1957. In the past 50 years,
our species has consumed more resources than in all of history before
that.
No doubt, packaging is important. It keeps food from spoiling and
protects products from damage during shipping. Given that packaging is
here to stay, biodegradable versions are appealing, and the technology
has made major advances in recent years.
One of the biggest players in the business is Cargill's NatureWorks,
which uses corn to produce a biodegradable plastic building block
called PLA. Another power player is BASF's Ecoflex, which is a
synthetic material derived from petroleum. Plenty of other companies
use sugarcane and other starches to make PLA and similar materials.
Web sites for these bioplastics tout their wonders. NatureWorks, for
example, has calculated that manufacturing its PLA brand, called
Ingeo, produces 43 percent fewer greenhouse gases and uses 48 percent
less non-renewable energy than traditional plastic polymers, including
PET and PVC.
But biodegradable plastics are not an easy fix for our environmental
woes. In order to break down completely, a 100 percent biodegradable
product needs to end up in a community-scale composting facility,
which keeps proper temperature and moisture levels for long enough
periods of time. Backyard bins just won't cut it.
In a landfill, a biodegradable container will probably sit there just
as long as other plastics do. If it does disintegrate, one concern is
that the plastic might release methane gas, a more powerful greenhouse
gas than carbon dioxide.
In an environment like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Narayan added,
partially degradable plastics that are mixed with other additives are
more likely to leach toxins that can enter the food chain.
"One has to be careful," Narayan said. "If it's only partially
degradable, it's worse. Partial biodegradability is not an acceptable
option."
The good news is that a growing number of communities now have
composting facilities that can completely break down true bioplastics,
said Eric Lombardi, executive director of Eco-cycle, the nation's
largest community recycler in Boulder, Colo. The next step, he said,
is to develop more of these facilities, and to convince people to
separate their waste correctly into three bins: recycling, composting,
and trash.
"America is currently recovering only 30 percent of our discards, but
we can do 90 percent, and we should," Lombardi said. "The technology
is there for the most part. The missing piece now is infrastructure.
This country needs to stop building landfills and begin building
compost fills."
If there is a composting facility in your community, Narayan suggests
looking on biodegradable packaging for a stamp that says ASTM D6400.
That code means that the Biodegradable Products Institute has
certified the product as fully compostable.
For consumers who have neither a composting facility in their
neighborhood nor a worm-filled bucket in their backyards, buying
biodegradable products isn't going to make much of a difference --
except as a statement that the concept is important to them.
Pressuring your local government to motivate and compost, Lombardi
said, might be a better strategy.
"People are waking up to the fact that every town needs a composting
facility," he said. "It's one of the good news stories out there."
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