More on Killer Plastic – The indigestability of plastic bags.
By Hugh Paxton
“In answer to the rather silly myth that has been promulgated that it isn’t worth using biodegradable materials because modern landfills are fully sealed, the very obvious point should be noted that most plastic bags aren’t ending up in sealed landfills!”
Seeing these hideous images of choked seabirds from Midway atoll in your article The Long Arm Of Plastic reminds me to put my mouth where my money is and talk about the merits of biodegradable plastic. The sad fact is that improper disposal of waste plastic is having a very deleterious effect on a lot of wildlife, it is truly an international problem of epic proportions.
Wouldn’t it be awful if the sea turtles which managed to survive the cataclysmic termination of the dinosaurs could be hastened to extinction by plastic bags? Yet that is exactly what is happening.
Many species of sea turtles that munch upon jelly fish for a living are cutting short their sweet lives by choking their alimentary tracts with plastic bags. Sadly, they can’t distinguish between a healthy coelenterate supper and the diaphanous floating billows of plastic bags.
Even if they mistake just 1 in a 1000 meals – the sheer quantity of plastic waste in our oceans coupled with its very slow decomposition, the turtles’ need for a high rate of consumption ( due to the low nutritional content of their jelly-fish prey) and their slow breeding rate means that the odds are stacked heavily against sea turtle survival.
Whether these bags were carelessly dumped or just plucked by the wind from trash cans, heaps, picnic bags or boats matters little to the turtles. What does matter, and this matters a lot, is the size of the jetsam and the amount of time it remains an environmental hazard after it has served its useful purpose to humanity.
Thankfully there is a solution; it is to replace conventional long-lived plastics with plastics that are programmed to biodegrade in about 6 months under normal conditions of careless disposal or on an open rubbish dump!
Symphony Environmental plc add proprietary granules to plastic in the manufacturing process that retain the strength of the plastic during its short span of useful service to mankind and then enable decomposition to set in from exposure to moisture and air when decomposition becomes the new priority.On their website Symphony claims:
“Our d2w® additive put into the plastic at the extrusion stage will make the finished product “oxo-biodegradable” so that it will degrade and disappear in a short timescale, leaving no fragments, no methane and no harmful residues.Degradability is not a disposal option – you can still re-use and recycle – it is low cost insurance against the accumulation of plastic waste in the environment.”
Brilliant.
Symphony franchises its proprietary biodegradable plastic technology internationally and I am happy to say that they are rapidly expanding their operations and now have customers in Europe, North, South and Central America, The Middle East, India and The Far East.
In answer to the rather silly myth that has been promulgated that it isn’t worth using biodegradable materials because modern landfills are fully sealed, the very obvious point should be noted that most plastic bags aren’t ending up in sealed landfills!
While I may not have enough shares in Symphony to make much of a financial difference to me, I know that every biodegradable plastic bag that replaces a non-biodegradable one is one less choking hazard for our Chelonian friends.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Plastics News.com
Oxo-biodegradable additive suppliers rebut critics
By Frank Esposito
PLASTICS NEWS STAFF
Posted February 2, 2010
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA (Updated Feb. 4, 1:25 p.m. ET) --
A pair of oxo-biodegradable plastic additive makers have fired back at the Society of the Plastics Industry’s Bioplastics Council over claims of biodegradability.
The Bioplastics Council had questioned such claims in a 5-page position paper released Jan. 28, saying that “the issue is one of claiming biodegradation where there is not data to support those claims, or to prove biodegradability as per accepted standards.”
In a Feb. 1 rebuttal, officials with additives maker EPI Environmental Products Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, said the Bioplastics Council and a similar European trade group “are inherently biased against competing technologies, and … have once again sought to discredit oxo-biodegradable plastics technology through their ongoing campaign of misinformation and rumor-mongering.”
EPI officials battle on for five pages, disputing the council’s claims and adding several claims defending its own products.
A similar rebuttal from additives maker Symphony Environmental Technologies plc of Borehamwood, England, was less polite.
“The increasingly desperate efforts of the hydro-biodegradable (vegetable-based or ‘compostable’) plastic companies to rubbish oxo-biodegradable plastics are becoming laughable,” Symphony officials said in a Feb. 1 release. “Their latest tactic is to form themselves in the U.S.A. into a very official-sounding organization called the ‘Bioplastics Council’ and to attach it to the respected Society of the Plastics Industry.”
“This ‘Council’ has recently issued a Position Paper which repeats the allegations made against oxo-biodegradable plastics in July 2009 by an organization called ‘European Bioplastics.’ Not surprising really — as they are financed by some of the same companies for the same purpose.”
EPI officials had disputed similar claims made by European Bioplastics in August.
In response to the criticism from EPI and Symphony, the SPI Bioplastics Council issued a statement:
“The SPI Bioplastics Council’s position paper on oxo-biodegradable technologies was drafted with considerable thought and deliberation, and was released on January 28 after extensive review and due diligence. We strongly stand by the position taken, and reiterate that it is the duty of industry to provide consumers with clear information supported by scientific data so that marketing claims do in fact match product results.”
The Bioplastics Council is comprised of eight member companies: Arkema, BASF Corp., Cereplast Inc., DuPont Co., NatureWorks LLC, PolyOne Corp., Teknor Apex and Telles, the joint venture company of Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland. Seven of those eight — with the exception of Teknor Apex — also are members of European Bioplastics, a trade group formed in 2006.
Two other recycling-focused trade groups – the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR) and the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) also have raised concerns about oxo-biodegradable additives. APR in particular has challenged additives producers to produce evidence that their products won’t ultimately weaken products made from recycled resins.
Steve Alexander, executive director of APR, said degradable additives have at least two environmental hurdles to overcome.
“First, do the additives in fact lead to degradation of plastic molecules to carbon dioxide and water? Doubts and claims abound, particularly about timeframes. While such discussions are interesting and necessary, we as citizens wonder if degradation leads to environmental benefit on its own or is degradation an environmental negative and initiation of new environmental issues. We believe the greater environmental benefit and sustainable action is to use the plastic molecule again and not waste it,” Alexander said in a statement.
“Second, and more pertinent to our interests in plastics recycling, we wonder how the additives affect the process of recycling, the making of the next item from recycled plastic, and the service life of the next item, Alexander said. “Premature demise of items made of recycled plastic which contain degradable additives is not helpful. The early failure of some items impacts the reputation of all.”
Alexander said APR is pleased that some companies, such as Symphony, have excluded PET as a targeted resin, and that some are proceeding to test their materials per the APR degradable additives protocol.
By Frank Esposito
PLASTICS NEWS STAFF
Posted February 2, 2010
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA (Updated Feb. 4, 1:25 p.m. ET) --
A pair of oxo-biodegradable plastic additive makers have fired back at the Society of the Plastics Industry’s Bioplastics Council over claims of biodegradability.
The Bioplastics Council had questioned such claims in a 5-page position paper released Jan. 28, saying that “the issue is one of claiming biodegradation where there is not data to support those claims, or to prove biodegradability as per accepted standards.”
In a Feb. 1 rebuttal, officials with additives maker EPI Environmental Products Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, said the Bioplastics Council and a similar European trade group “are inherently biased against competing technologies, and … have once again sought to discredit oxo-biodegradable plastics technology through their ongoing campaign of misinformation and rumor-mongering.”
EPI officials battle on for five pages, disputing the council’s claims and adding several claims defending its own products.
A similar rebuttal from additives maker Symphony Environmental Technologies plc of Borehamwood, England, was less polite.
“The increasingly desperate efforts of the hydro-biodegradable (vegetable-based or ‘compostable’) plastic companies to rubbish oxo-biodegradable plastics are becoming laughable,” Symphony officials said in a Feb. 1 release. “Their latest tactic is to form themselves in the U.S.A. into a very official-sounding organization called the ‘Bioplastics Council’ and to attach it to the respected Society of the Plastics Industry.”
“This ‘Council’ has recently issued a Position Paper which repeats the allegations made against oxo-biodegradable plastics in July 2009 by an organization called ‘European Bioplastics.’ Not surprising really — as they are financed by some of the same companies for the same purpose.”
EPI officials had disputed similar claims made by European Bioplastics in August.
In response to the criticism from EPI and Symphony, the SPI Bioplastics Council issued a statement:
“The SPI Bioplastics Council’s position paper on oxo-biodegradable technologies was drafted with considerable thought and deliberation, and was released on January 28 after extensive review and due diligence. We strongly stand by the position taken, and reiterate that it is the duty of industry to provide consumers with clear information supported by scientific data so that marketing claims do in fact match product results.”
The Bioplastics Council is comprised of eight member companies: Arkema, BASF Corp., Cereplast Inc., DuPont Co., NatureWorks LLC, PolyOne Corp., Teknor Apex and Telles, the joint venture company of Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland. Seven of those eight — with the exception of Teknor Apex — also are members of European Bioplastics, a trade group formed in 2006.
Two other recycling-focused trade groups – the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR) and the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) also have raised concerns about oxo-biodegradable additives. APR in particular has challenged additives producers to produce evidence that their products won’t ultimately weaken products made from recycled resins.
Steve Alexander, executive director of APR, said degradable additives have at least two environmental hurdles to overcome.
“First, do the additives in fact lead to degradation of plastic molecules to carbon dioxide and water? Doubts and claims abound, particularly about timeframes. While such discussions are interesting and necessary, we as citizens wonder if degradation leads to environmental benefit on its own or is degradation an environmental negative and initiation of new environmental issues. We believe the greater environmental benefit and sustainable action is to use the plastic molecule again and not waste it,” Alexander said in a statement.
“Second, and more pertinent to our interests in plastics recycling, we wonder how the additives affect the process of recycling, the making of the next item from recycled plastic, and the service life of the next item, Alexander said. “Premature demise of items made of recycled plastic which contain degradable additives is not helpful. The early failure of some items impacts the reputation of all.”
Alexander said APR is pleased that some companies, such as Symphony, have excluded PET as a targeted resin, and that some are proceeding to test their materials per the APR degradable additives protocol.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Government of India, press office
Ministry of environment and forests
Status of Implementation of Plastic Wastes Management in States / Union Territories
Delhi , February 1,2010
Various States have increased the minimum thickness of plastic carry bags to even higher limits of 40, 50, or 70 microns. These States/ UTs are: Goa (40 micron), Himachal Pradesh ( 70 micron; HP Cabinet decided to ban plastics in the entire State with effect from 15.08.2009), Maharashtra (50 micron), Meghalaya ( 40 micron), Punjab (30 micron), Chandigarh (30 micron), West Bengal (40 micron ), Kerala (30 micron)
(a) The Government of Delhi issued a notification dated 21st November 2008 titled “ the Delhi Degradable Plastic Bag ( Manufacturing, Sale and Usage )and Garbage (Control) (Amendment ) Act, 2008” Section 11(b0 of this notification stipulates that no person shall manufacture, stock, distribute or sell plastic begs made of virgin of recycled, degradable or non –degradable plastic bags which are less than 40 microns in thickness. Another notification issued on 7th January 2009 under the powers delegated to Government of Delhi by the Central Government under Section -5 of the Environment (Protection ) Act, 1986, which prohibits the use, sale and storage off all kinds of plastic bags in Five Star and Four Star Hotels, Hospitals with 100 more beds except the use of plastic bags as pres cribbed under Bio-medical Waste (management and handling) Rules, seats, all fruits and vegetable outlets selling different consumer products including fruits and vegetables.
(b) West Bengal Pollution Control Board has banned manufacture, sale and use of plastic carry bags in ecologically fragile areas viz the entire Sunderban areas, Hilly areas of Darjeeling distinct, Sub-division, CRZ areas (Digha, Sagar, Bakkhali etc.), Forest areas and in different heritage and tourist site.
(c) Action has been initiated for public awareness (trainings, workshops) for plastic waste management such as proper disposal of plastic bottles, banning of plastic carry bags, use of cloth/jute bags etc.
(d) Coloured Plastic carry bags have been banned in Himachal Pradesh. Use of plastic carry begs have been banned in some districts in Mizoram /West Bengal
(e) Jammu and Kashmir has also banned polythene carry bags under Non Bio- Degradable Material (Management, Handling and Disposal) Act, 2007 with effect from 11.5.2009.(f) Government of Himachal Pradesh has taken a cabinet decision for complete bad of plastics in Himachal Pradesh under the HP Non-Biodegradable Garbage Control Act, 1995 effective from 15th August 2009.
KP
Status of Implementation of Plastic Wastes Management in States / Union Territories
Delhi , February 1,2010
Various States have increased the minimum thickness of plastic carry bags to even higher limits of 40, 50, or 70 microns. These States/ UTs are: Goa (40 micron), Himachal Pradesh ( 70 micron; HP Cabinet decided to ban plastics in the entire State with effect from 15.08.2009), Maharashtra (50 micron), Meghalaya ( 40 micron), Punjab (30 micron), Chandigarh (30 micron), West Bengal (40 micron ), Kerala (30 micron)
(a) The Government of Delhi issued a notification dated 21st November 2008 titled “ the Delhi Degradable Plastic Bag ( Manufacturing, Sale and Usage )and Garbage (Control) (Amendment ) Act, 2008” Section 11(b0 of this notification stipulates that no person shall manufacture, stock, distribute or sell plastic begs made of virgin of recycled, degradable or non –degradable plastic bags which are less than 40 microns in thickness. Another notification issued on 7th January 2009 under the powers delegated to Government of Delhi by the Central Government under Section -5 of the Environment (Protection ) Act, 1986, which prohibits the use, sale and storage off all kinds of plastic bags in Five Star and Four Star Hotels, Hospitals with 100 more beds except the use of plastic bags as pres cribbed under Bio-medical Waste (management and handling) Rules, seats, all fruits and vegetable outlets selling different consumer products including fruits and vegetables.
(b) West Bengal Pollution Control Board has banned manufacture, sale and use of plastic carry bags in ecologically fragile areas viz the entire Sunderban areas, Hilly areas of Darjeeling distinct, Sub-division, CRZ areas (Digha, Sagar, Bakkhali etc.), Forest areas and in different heritage and tourist site.
(c) Action has been initiated for public awareness (trainings, workshops) for plastic waste management such as proper disposal of plastic bottles, banning of plastic carry bags, use of cloth/jute bags etc.
(d) Coloured Plastic carry bags have been banned in Himachal Pradesh. Use of plastic carry begs have been banned in some districts in Mizoram /West Bengal
(e) Jammu and Kashmir has also banned polythene carry bags under Non Bio- Degradable Material (Management, Handling and Disposal) Act, 2007 with effect from 11.5.2009.(f) Government of Himachal Pradesh has taken a cabinet decision for complete bad of plastics in Himachal Pradesh under the HP Non-Biodegradable Garbage Control Act, 1995 effective from 15th August 2009.
KP
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
