The world is full of opinions. Everyone takes sides thousands of times a day. Some say biodegradable plastic is a giant step forward, some think it’s a big hoax. What’s the truth? Continue reading to find out.

Meet the European Plastic Recyclers – an organization based in Belgium, which promotes proper plastic storage, recycling and reuse. Basically, they will help you find the proper green way, so Toxic Avenger won’t have to come after you at night. Oh, and they hate biodegradable plastic.

But why would they? Isn’t it what they should be advocating, instead of opposing? It turns out they consider it very uneco-friendly. Are there any facts behind this weird accusation? Let’s begin with the basics. What is biodegradable plastic?

It is a plastic, that is biodegradable. Talk about a shock! It can be made of either biological plastics, or petroleum-based plastics. The fact, that it’s mainly built of simple molecules, lets the micro-organisms devour through it in a heartbeat, to make simpler and less harmful humus. Unfortunately, life’s not that simple.

Calculations can’t exactly tell us how long it’s going to take for that little stinking bag to disappear. However, what we know from the experiments, is not good news.

FACTS

Biodegradable plastics prefer hot and dry conditions. If it’s too cold, or too wet, the decomposing will take a whole lot longer than what’s advertised. In extremely difficult conditions, it will stop degrading completely. Our bags and whatnot also need access to the sun and air. If they’re lying covered by tons of other garbage, guess what? Not exactly decomposing.

Despite proper humidity, degradation can be drastically reduced because of ammonia and/or hydrogen peroxide generated by micro-organisms during decomposition.

Depending on a place on earth, plastic could meet it’s final destination sooner, or later. Proper bacteria are also needed for this process and their performance will vary too.

Cobalt and Iron are two metals very commonly used for production of biodegradable plastic. These stay in it, and as the process of decomposing progresses (if decomposition can be called  a progress), them ugly metals get released into the air, which doesn’t exactly contribute to healthier planet. Producers state only tiny amounts are used, but some US studies state otherwise. Green gases that are harmful to the environment are also released in the process.

ATTITUDE

The list of scientific facts could go on, but what about the mental aspect? Ecological awareness is getting more and more into our culture. It’s no longer ok to pollute.

Global warming is a very popular subject. Nuclear energy is a scapegoat these days, after what happened in Fukushima. Japanese politicians told their people they need to go the solar panel way. if you do basic research, you’ll quickly find that harvesting the Sun’s energy is definitely the future (or at least part of it), but silicone-based solar panels are drastically more harmful to our planet than The Atom.

Politicians don’t really care, they just want more votes. And green is the way to gain them these days.

There is another mental angle to this problem: conscience. Everyday millions of people throw away bags of biodegradable plastic just because they are biodegradable. Maybe they (let’s face it: we) would think twice if it would be normal plastic.

FuturEnergia makes a great point by stating that “littering is fundamentally a problem of irresponsible behaviour, which should be tackled by changing people’s attitudes rather than by changing the products they are throwing away”.

EPI perfectly explains why eco-friendly plastic is not a lesser evil, by breaking down all main arguments against it.

Fred Pearce of The Guardian has written this interesting article about the subject. It was written almost 3 years ago, but no much has changed since.

CONCLUSION

While we slowly grow out of hunter/gatherer mentality, where everything is a resource that’s meant for abuse (to cite Sick of it All), we have to be very careful about the decisions we’re making. Politicians and the corporate world sees that change in consciousness and acknowledges it as another great way to earn some bucks.

However, they don’t address it properly and really give us similar products, just packed differently. Changing the color to green is enough to fool us today, but tomorrow we’ll know better. Let’s just make it happen fast enough, so we won’t destroy our Home somewhere along the way.