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Seminar Clears Misconceptions About Plastic

Mangalore, Oct 5

A presentation by Goldwin Fernandes on plastics (confining to polyolefin's, PE and PP) in comparison with other packaging material at the City Corporation, was held here on Thursday October 4, in the presence of the MCC environmental engineer Manjunath Shetty , pollution control officer Laxman and the task force.

Addressing the MCC officers, Fernandes explained and clarified certain facts and misconceptions about conventional plastic before moving on to biodegradable plastic and its comparison with paper bags, non-woven PP and cloth bags.

Generally the negatives of plastic bags are highlighted and compared with positives of paper bags and cloth. But Fernandes put forward facts, figures and scientific proof on how the positives of using plastic bags, especially environment friendly oxo- biodegradable and compostable plastic bags outweigh the positives of using paper bags or cloth bags.

Many life cycle analyses of plastic bags in comparison with other materials were cited. The presentation showed that resources used and emissions generated for the manufacture of plastic bags were far less as compared to the manufacture of other materials. Plastics are also safer, cheaper and more economical than paper bags. Plastics are safe for use in agriculture, medicine and food industry as they are certified food grade as per Indian standards specifications.

He showed as per Boustead report that if all plastic bags were replaced by paper bags there would be a drastic increase in greenhouse gases and environment pollution. Speaking on biodegradable plastic he said that the two main biodegradable plastics used are oxo-biodegradable which are to be tested as per ASTM D6954-04 and compostable (hydro-biodegradable) as per ASTM D6400. He said both these are certified and proven.

He said that service life of the bag can be set for oxo-biodegradable after which it will degrade and biodegrade leaving no harmful residue. The degraded fragments are not plastic but are like materials similar to natures waste and nature's processes act on it and biodegrade them. Oxo-biodegradable material is safe for contact with food.

Fernandes said that fermenting corn or sugarcane gives lactic acid which when polymerized gives PLA which is used in the manufacture of compostable bags .The life of the bags is about one year and it is fully compostable.

During the general interaction the pollution control showed the test report which was received from CIPET.  It showed that the non-woven bags which were being passed off as cloth bags were in fact plastic bags made of polypropylene. The recent 2011 LCA published by the UK government's environment agency has indicated that global warming generated by this specific material non-woven PP bag is much more than that of a conventional plastic bag and not environment friendly. He pointed out that polyolefin's are a different category of plastics and are safe for the environment and for food contact, but due to misinformation considered hazardous.