The average plastic bag is used on average for 12 minutes befor being chucked away. Add that to the 100 billion bags used in the US, and the 100 billion bags used in the EU; we can start to see a problem.
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Biodegradable plastic bags have been advertised as the magic bullet to the plastic crisis, but is this the case? Or are they being used as a marketing scheme?
Find out all here!
Are Biodegradable Plastic Bags Good For The Environment?
No, not really, they&#;re not as good as compostable, but they are better than traditional plastic bags. A recent study from the University of Plymouth set out to document on how different styles of eco-friendly plastic bags broke down.
It revealed that the plastic bags did not perform in the way you&#;d think. If you haven&#;t read the study yet; spoiler alert:
The bags were placed under four different conditions:
Sea
Soil
Air & Sunlight
Blackout box
After 3 years in the soil and exposed to sea water all of the plastic bags accept for the compostable bag remained whole.
They could still hold a load of shopping weighing 2.5 kilos and didn&#;t show any signs of breaking.
Dr. Imogen Napper said:
Our studies show that biodegradable and compostable offer no meaningful advantage to the environment at the moment.
The only time all the bags broke down was when they were exposed to oxygen and UV rays. The problem is they very rarely get exposed to these conditions.
They end up at the landfill, never see sunlight or oxygen again. Trash gets piled upon more waste, and because of this, nothing biodegrades.
Plastic bags also make their way into the marine environment, where it starts working it&#;s way up the food chain. Sea Turtles and other marine life mistake them for jellyfish.
The plastic either kills the animal by clogging the insides or gets transferred to the animal that eats it.
Plastic bags have been found in dead whales stomachs. It&#;s one of the number one plastic waste found in whales.
Even when they get exposed to the right conditions, they break down into tiny pieces of plastic where land animals eat them. Again it makes its way up the food chain, usually, to us. The food we need to survive is starting to infect us with micro-plastic.
They also produce a lot of methane during the degrading process. Methane is a very well know pollutant, which is damaging our ozone significantly.
I&#;ve got one last reason why biodegradable bags aren&#;t the way forward. They can&#;t be recycled, which means there&#;s no way to repurpose the materials.
So they can&#;t be recycled, and they&#;re barely biodegradable. Even when they do find the right conditions to degrade, they breakdown into microplastic.
What Are Biodegradable Plastic Bags Made Out Of?
There&#;s some confusion around biodegradable bags and what there&#;re made from. You have a few different styles of eco- friendly bags available on the market. So, let&#;s go through them:
Biodegradable bags are made with a similar makeup as conventional plastic bags.
They still use the same petrochemicals but are engineered to break down at a better rate.
The problem is petrochemicals leave behind harmful chemicals.
Once broken down, they leave dangerous residue behind that can leach into food sources.
To degrade, it requires the presence of oxygen and sunlight. Without it, it&#;s unlikely ever to biodegrade. One thing to remember is these bags can not be composted.
Unlike biodegradable bags, bioplastics are made with natural materials.
This could come from cornstarch or other various starchy sources.
Researchers found starch can act in the same way as polyethylene, but eliminated the need for petrochemicals.
It also uses less energy to produce than conventional plastic; researchers also found that bioplastics produced well over 50% fewer emissions.
Some bioplastics are said to be compostable; they degrade quickly and can leave behind minerals.
One thing to take note of is that not all bioplastics can be composted. Some leave behind toxins similarly to biodegradable bags.
If you do use them as compostable bags, you should know that they can only be commercially composted, home composting doesn&#;t cut it.
Compostable bags are the best out of the three choices.
They&#;re made with nutrient-rich materials and once broken down leaves nothing behind but minerals.
They also tend to biodegrade at a faster rate, while leaving no traces at all.
Some compostable bags don&#;t break down unless they go to a composting plant, so that&#;s something to watch out for. Overall they&#;re a lot better for the environment than traditional polyethylene.
How Long Does It Take For A Biodegradable Plastic Bag To Decompose?
Biodegradable bags can take around 3-6 months to decompose fully, or at least they do under the right conditions.
For the decomposition process to get started, the temperature need&#;s to reach well over 50°C, which even when you&#;re in a tropical country, it&#;s unlikely to reach these temperatures.
They need to be exposed to sunlight, so I&#;m sure the UK would struggle.
For more information, please visit biodegradable garbage bags suppliers.
But it&#;s not just the UK that will suffer; everyone will. Biodegradable bags aren&#;t recyclable, which means they end up going to landfill sites. After a few days, the trash is completely covered, unlikely ever to see sunlight again.
Even a compostable bag struggles with the environment created by a landfill.
So, how long does it take for a biodegradable bag to break down? It&#;s anyone&#;s guess, but it could well be 100s of years.
Where To Buy Biodegradable Plastic Bags
You shouldn&#;t be buying biodegradable bags at all. They damage the environment, and they&#;re unlikely to break down.
Why not go for a compostable bag, they break down quicker and leave behind helpful nutrients. But where should you get them from?
Most local supermarkets have a selection of biodegradable bags to choose from.
But you need to do some research into the brand before you purchase them. There&#;s no standard testing, which means some perform a lot better than others.
You could also check out local wholesalers, Amazon, or go to the manufacturer directly. But again, this takes a lot of research to find the best brand.
Or you could stay here and check out some of the best brands I could find on the market; it saves you having to do the research!
Summary
So, is plastic biodegradable?
Well, if you&#;re talking about biodegradable bags, then yes, they do, but not nearly as well as they should. Make sure you check out the University study, it&#;s pretty impressive.
Biodegradable means a substance should return to nature and leave no harmful toxins, but as environmental science is proving, that&#;s not always the case.
It is getting so bad that pieces of microplastics are ending up in our food.
If you found what you&#;ve read here interesting, then don&#;t forget to share it. The more people we can get to subscribe to living a sustainable life, the more we can do for the planet.
If you have any questions drop me a comment and I&#;ll get back to you. And don&#;t forget to pick up your own biodegradable trash bags.
The average person uses a typical plastic bag for as short a time as 12 minutes before throwing it away, never thinking of where it may end up.
Yet once consigned to a landfill, that standard grocery store tote takes hundreds or thousands of years to break down &#; much more than a human lifetime. Bags make up an alarming amount of the plastic found in whale stomachs or bird nests, and it&#;s no wonder &#; globally, we use between 1 and 5 trillion plastic bags each year.
Biodegradable plastic bags are marketed as more eco-friendly solutions, able to break down into harmless material more quickly than traditional plastics. One company claims their shopping bag &#;will degrade and biodegrade in a continuous, irreversible and unstoppable process&#; if it ends up as litter in the environment.
Biodegradable bags that had been left underwater in a marina could still hold a full load of groceries.
In a study published this week in Environmental Science and Technology, researchers put supposedly eco-friendly bags made from various organic and plastic materials and sourced from U.K. stores to the test. After three years buried in garden soil, submerged in ocean water, exposed to open light and air or stashed in a laboratory, none of the bags broke down completely in all the environments.
In fact, the biodegradable bags that had been left underwater in a marina could still hold a full load of groceries.
&#;What is the role of some of these really innovative and novel polymers?&#; asked Richard Thompson, a marine biologist from the University of Plymouth and the study&#;s senior author. A polymer is a repeating chain of chemicals that makes up a plastic&#;s structure, whether biodegradable or synthetic.
&#;They&#;re challenging to recycle and are very slow to degrade if they become litter in the environment,&#; Thompson said, suggesting these biodegradable plastics may be causing more problems than they solve.
The researchers collected samples of five types of plastic bags.
The first type was made of high-density polyethylene &#; the standard plastic found in grocery store bags. It was used as a comparison for four other bags labeled as eco-friendly:
Each bag type was placed in four environments. Whole bags and bags cut into strips were buried in garden soil outdoors, submerged in salt water in a marina, left exposed to daylight and open air, or sealed in a dark container in a temperature-controlled lab.
Oxygen, temperature and light all change the structure of plastic polymers, said Julia Kalow, a polymer chemist from Northwestern University, who was not involved in this study. So too can reactions with water and interactions with bacteria or other forms of life.
Even in a tough marine environment, where algae and animals quickly covered the plastic, three years wasn&#;t long enough to break down any of the plastics except for the plant-based compostable option, which did disappear underwater within three months. The plant-derived bags, however, remained intact but weakened when buried under garden soil for 27 months.
The only treatment that consistently broke down all of the bags was exposure to open air for more than nine months, and in that case even the standard, traditional polyethylene bag disintegrated into pieces before 18 months had passed.
&#;I would take that timescale to be too long for these products to be regarded as providing an environmental advantage,&#; Thompson said.
Even if these bags take less time to break down than traditional plastic bags, as litter they would still have enough time to become potentially deadly food for ocean animals like seabirds, whales, turtles or fish. Moreover, they would still be an eyesore and take up space at waste facilities for months or years.
And when some of the plastic bags did seem to break down, such as the bags left to the open air, it was unclear if the disintegration was complete.
&#;Did the plastic that was lost just become smaller pieces of plastic?&#; Kalow asked, &#;Or did it become molecules that could dissolve in water and be consumed?&#;
Future studies, she said, should dig into the fate of those disintegrated plastic particles, to ascertain whether they truly break down and disappear &#; or become microplastics and harmful chemicals.
Even standard plastic bags can&#;t be recycled from your home recycling bin, so most end up in landfill or are swept away by water or wind, becoming litter.
Labels like &#;biodegradable,&#; &#;compostable&#; or even &#;recyclable&#; are theoretical &#; they don&#;t reflect the reality of what happens to the materials.
Biodegradable and compostable bags are meant to solve these problems, but the study indicates that&#;s not the case so far.
These alternative bags aren&#;t meant to end up as litter in the street or in the natural environment &#; ideally, they&#;d all be treated just as manufacturers expect. Biodegradable bags would be landfilled or, in some cases, recycled into new plastics &#; at least in theory.
But &#;even if we can make something that&#;s recyclable, that doesn&#;t mean any commercial recycling plant would be interested in dealing with it,&#; Kalow said. Biodegradable plastics can&#;t generally be recycled with other plastics &#; in fact, they can ruin other batches of recyclable plastic, degrading the product until it becomes unusable.
Meanwhile, the eco-conscious should hope their compostable bags end up in industrial composting facilities where high temperatures and favorable conditions for bacteria and other living things would break them down. (Compostable bags in chilly, oxygen-starved landfills can actually be preserved rather than destroyed.
These are the real problems, Thompson said. Labels like &#;biodegradable,&#; &#;compostable&#; or even &#;recyclable&#; are theoretical &#; they don&#;t reflect the reality of what happens to the materials we throw away or litter into the oceans, and they don&#;t help people accurately understand how to get rid of them.
Three years after the researchers&#; plastic bags were buried or submerged, they were nearly as useful &#; and as harmful &#; as the day they were made.
Some simple solutions might help. Thompson suggested that standardized products, made of the same sets of materials, could streamline our waste management systems and allow much more of our waste to be profitably recycled. Kalow, the polymer chemist, said there may yet be hope for new, improved biodegradable plastics if only we could discover that technology.
In the meantime, it doesn&#;t hurt to remember your reusable bag on your way to the store.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website cornstarch compostable bags.