It seems that recently, not only are companies ‘going green,’ but they’re also jumping on board with biodegradable plastics. Whether it’s cups, utensils or rubbish bags, it looks like a lot of major food service items have been getting environmental makeovers, but what do they actually do for the wellbeing of the planet?
To clarify, biodegradable plastics or compostable plastics are designed to improve your environmental wellness because they will completely compost in a commercial compost facility. If you’re looking for them, PLA (polylactic acid) is one of the most common corn based plastics used. However, there is an issue with biodegradable plastics in that, in order to break down properly, they need extended high temperatures and even commercial composting facilities, the only places that really seem to do this easily, have trouble with them.
Yet, biodegradable plastic rubbish bags actually appear useful, though they are often expensive, not so durable and have many fraudulent imitators. Whether you have large quantities of recycling or rubbish on your hands, you will always have material to send out somewhere so biodegradable trash bags are a fair choice, because even if everyone recycled and composted to the max, you would still need bags here and there to maintain order.
However, if you want to buy biodegradable plastic rubbish bags, most composting facilities will require that they are certified to the ASDM D6400 standard, so make sure it says so on the packaging, or else you may end up with an oxo-biodegradable bag, which does not fully compost.
There is less of a point to biodegradable cups as the need for a cup could be avoided altogether with enough planning, and bringing a bottle of water with you wherever you go. Even paper cups are lined with plastic, and so won’t fully compost, though supposedly some exist that are lined with soybean wax, and will compost completely.
Finally, biodegradable plastics seem like a good idea, but when you consider how many actually get recycled, it may be another case of habitual reduction instead of material usage. Keeping a fork at your work desk seems wiser than going for disposable flatware, and so, though little changes can lead to big outcomes, biodegradable plastics are not the greatest answer. The real problem at hand is our throwaway culture, and that’s what we need to work on fixing.
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