'Biodegradable' Doesn't Always Mean EarthFriendly
By Emily Sohn
Without proper composting facilities, throwing away
biodegradable materials may actually be worse for the
environment.
Every year, Americans throw away 250 million tons of waste.
Getty Images
THE GIST:
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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 yoga mats to disposable
forks 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."
"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.
"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
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."
Source: E. Sohn. 'Biodegradable' Doesn't Always Mean Earth-Friendly. Obtained
http://news.discovery.com/earth/garbage-biodegradable-earth-month.html on November 6, 2012