| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| FM |
bio-degradable - good or bad?What is the current thinking of bio-degradable products and packaging? i thought it was a good thing, until i recently discovered that the government is trying to reduce bio-degradables going to landfill. at first i thought it was a misprint, but apparently when bio-degradables break down, they emit carbon and other ozone depleting gases, so the theory is that they add to global warming. also, though a container may be made of environmentally friendly materials, the print used on the labels may not be, and bidegradable plastic just enables the chemicals to leach into the soil and water table quicker.what does everyone else think? |
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| Jamanda |
Carbon is not a gas. If you mean Carbon dioxide it has nothing to do with ozone depletion.
Of course land fill and packaging should be reduced from what ever source - but where packaging is necessary I think it is better for it to be biodegradable - then composted, not sent to land fill. |
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| Northern_Lad |
I think the thinking is Reduce, Re-use, recycle, compost.
It's better than throwing things away that will take millennia to break down but not as good as not using it in the first place. |
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| vegplot |
I'd rather see packaging that biodegrades and is less of a threat to wildlife. By the amount of rubbish in the verges it apepars that most of our waste is thrown out of vehicle windows. | ||||
| FM |
sorry - my mistake, apparently they produce methane rather than carbon dioxide. sent to biomass generators this is what is needed, but is a problem if it's landfilled or left to decompose just anywhere. the trouble is biomass generators are not very widespread yet, and it's probably not ideal to send vehicles here there and everywhere to collect the waste and take to a suitable site. granted that the first option is to reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place, but using WRAPs Reduce, Re-use, Recycle slogan as a guideline suggests that a re-usable container is a better option than one that is bio-degradable. | ||||
| Jamanda |
Absolutely. |
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| Mrs Fiddlesticks |
I think what you're getting at is that bio-degradeable needs the right conditions to bio-degrade and I think I'm right in thinking that buried in landfil isn't it - help me out scientists on this one!!
ah, this is what I meant - knew I'd not imagined it - http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/biodegradable.htm |
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| Jamanda |
When old land fill is dug up they often find news papers decades old and quite readable. | ||||
| gnome |
thank you for that link - yes, that is another point against bio-degradable. Clearly, bio-degradable is only a useful alternative if the bio-degradable waste items are seperated, and then sent to something like bio-mass feeders. there is no system in place for doing that, and the average consumer is not going to know this - they are just going to throw it in the bin with the rest of the rubbish. the whole bio-degradable thing is just another example of an idea that was never really thought out properly in the first place and is just another way for the retail and manufacturing industries to pay lip service to the Green Agenda by saying "look at our green packaging - buying our product is good for the environment" when in reality it is making things worse, or at best making no difference at all. |
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| gnome |
i've given this some thought, and what is needed is for bio-degradables to be collected seperately. mixed with municipal waste they are a bad thing, but disposed of correctly they can be a good thing. the trouble is, nobody has givenit thought, so there are no seperate collections for biodegradable waste yet. if everyone lobbied theyr local council to make seperate arangements for bio-degradables, it would make a difference. | ||||
| gnome |
more thoughts - does anyone know how to build a home made bio-mass feeder? i remember visiting a pub when i was very much younger (back in the seventies) that got all it's electricity from a generator that ran off pig manure, which i guess worked in a similar way. i've seen pictures and presentations about bio-mass feeders, and they are huge things - massive. i wondered if it is possible to do it on a smaller scale. | ||||
| Maxwell Smart |
We've looked closely at using biodegradable packaging for our products and unfortunately it really is often more of a marketing/PR stunt rather than of any value to the environment.
Ultimately it depends on the type of biodegradable packaging but I am assuming you are talking about plastics in this particular case. The problem is first that biodegradable doesn't biodegrade unless it has the right conditions as has been pointed out. However even if it does have the right conditions most biodegradable plastics will actually degrade into components which can cause more harm to the environment and can also take years, decades or longer to degrade. The other concern is the actual manufacture of biodegradable plastics is not exactly the best thing for the environment as well. But to compound this problem, if you don't have your own compost and rely on your city to collect your compost it creates other problems. Biodegradable plastic in your compost tends to get pulled out as it can interfere with industrial composting and also as far as municipalities are concerned its plastic. There is to my knowledge no city which will accept biodegradable plastics in its compost collection. So if you don't stick it in your compost collection you can put it in your recycling right? Wrong - plastic recycling is a very delicate process and by putting in biodegradable plastics it can render and entire batch of recycled plastic unsuitable for recycling. In addition most consumer can't tell one plastic from another so how are they to know where to put it? Ultimately as far as municipalities are concerned, biodegradable plastics only end up in landfill. Of course some biodegradable plastics do break down with less harm to the environment - particular corn polymers, but there is limited use for these. In most cases it can't be used in packaging where it directly comes into contact with something you might consume such as food or beauty products. As pointed out the best answer is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle |
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| Maxwell Smart |
Problem is there are so many different types of biodegradables from "paper" type packaging through to plastics. And even within that there are different types of plastics etc. So you can't really group them all together. And it also needs to be clear to a consumer what is what... |
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| gnome |
thanks for that info max - it certainly puts things clearer. so bio-degradable is just another cheap conjuring trick - see how environmentally friendly this product is - poof! it's gone (along with any genuin sign of commitment).
i'm sure a lot of people still think that "bio-degradable" sign is the thing to look for, not knowing it's adding to the problems, not solving them. |
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| hamster |
Aren't biodegradable plastics usually made of corn starch as well? If so, would that not have some of the same issues as agrofuels, i.e. diverting crops away from food production and into producing non-essentials for the West? | ||||
| gnome |
another very good point. this is rapidly turning into one of those things where we think we are helping a problem but in our rush to jump on an easy solution find ourselves making things worse. clearly we must think things out carefully before we implement an idea. i have similar reservations about wind power. don't get me wrong, i've long argued in its favour, but wind turbines don't produce power from nothing - they take energy out of the wind. whilst this could reduce the impact of strong winds, what would be the environmental impact of reducing the wind movement across the Earth? if there were lots of wind turbines, there would be enough to have an environmental impact? i know weather is very hard to predict, but has anyone created a computer model of weather patterns if kinetic energy was taken out of our winds by say 2 %? | ||||
| Cho-ku-ri |
Can't we just have paper and card packaging with non toxic inks? | ||||
| Maxwell Smart |
unfortunately paper packaging is only suitable for dry goods. we are currently experimenting with a pcr/paper packaging combination for our products. not perfect but i think better than anything else out there.
the whole biodegradable packaging is a bit like the old debate of paper vs plastic bags. everyone jumped on paper bandwagon and then someone did a life-cycle study and said "hey acutally plastic bags are less environmentally damaging for the environment than paper. on top of which if you reuse your plastic bags its even better!"* *of course this was before discussions of peak oil and when recycling facilities were not as well developed and widespread as they are today. |
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| Trev |
Just to throw this into the discussion:
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/197/1/Degradable-Biodegradable-Compostable.html |
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| gnome |
and i'm glad you did Trev - that's just plastics. i bet it gets even more complicated when you you get onto other biodegradable packaging. what i would like to know is do the "green" claims apply to the raw material that the container is made from or the whole container? are the inks used for the brightly coloured images and words also environmentaly friendly? are they vegetable dyes? | ||||
| Trev |
Exactly, just how "green" is this packaging is highly questionable. With regards to corn starch based packaging was the crop grown specifically for packaging or is it a side/waste product of another industry (food/oil production)?
Producing packaging for home composting is laudable from a reduction of landfill that would otherwise result from “normal” packaging (or the level of packaging that has become the norm in the modern food industry). But at what cost? One has to consider the entire production/consumption lifecycle from source materials through transport, storage, supply & wastage to home consumption & disposal and the ancillary industries that support each part of the whole. The bandwagon reaction of providing organic produce shipped from New Zealand in unnecessary compostable packaging. An oxymoron of humongous proportions. |
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| gnome |
the trouble with plastic bags is that they are made from petrochemicals - a non renewble fossil fuel tha we are rapidly running out of. it seems that for many reasons, plastic bags have had their day, andnow a suitable altenative must be found. at present, bio-degraable bags are not the answer. i think maybe we are soon going to have to bite the bullet and admit that all the long haired tree hugging weirdos (of which i counted myself) of the seventies and eighties were right - we must change our ways. | ||||
| Ali Syme |
bio-degradable bags - the WRONG applicationBags made from PLA compounds aren't much of a suitable application. It was simply that bag manufacturers were under pressure and facing lower sales, so simply changed the material and branded it nicely.Bags aren't the best application - but why not do what Europeans do? They use fiber bags made from recycled paper, cardboard carriers you can take back to the supermarket. They also use glass bottles - so what direction are we going in that we don't even consider learning from countries who obviously have seen the same problem, and found a realistic? |
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| Quail By Mail |
In the early stages of starting my business I invested in some 'biodegradable' mailer bags. They are grey-ish plasticy things made in the UK. The company got a grant from the Prince's Trust.
I'm not convinced by the bags so I won't be reordering. The recycled and recyclable kraft paper I've been using seems to stand up to be posted without a covering and it looks great. |
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| gnome |
thats just the start of the problem. apparently even compostible plastics won't break down unless they are in the right conditions. again, they wont break down if buried deep in landfill, and wont break down in an ordinary household composter - it has to be turned regularly and aerated in an industrial composter. to make matters worse, people not knowing any better are mixing them with plastics to be sent for recyclllling - but they cant be recyc1ed so they are just contamiating the entire batch | ||||
| Ali Syme |
DegradingActually it's generally agreed that they will degrade in a home composting situation given the right time. The fact that they're made from alternative sources is big - but maybe we should follow China's example and only allow bags that are thick enough to be reused?Ali |
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| gnome |
Re: Degrading
i read on a website that they won't degrade in household composters - can anyone substantiate this one way or another? i mean with actual experience rather than a report that is biased one way or another. the sites i got my info from wre biased in favour of plastic, so i'm not entire convinced. one thing is agreed - they wont degrade in landfill - which is where most willl end up. where i live very few people have gardens, let alone composters. are there any coucilsor project that co11ect compstab1es seperat1ey? |
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| Ali Syme |
degradingIt's agreed that thin packaging will degrade in a home compost situation within a year - though it helps to tear them. But given the amount of packaging and the length of time required there's not a home composting system really big enough.Collections are starting for large companies and events who use packaging - and a lot of companies are going to launch specialised composting systems and contract regular recycling companies with the aid of local authorities to collect this waste. |
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| Trev |
I use cornstarch bags from:
http://www.naturalcollection.com/natural-products/Better-Value-Cornstarch-Sacks-Biodegradable.aspx to line my kitchen compost bin/caddy thingy before carting the stuff down to the compst heap twice a week. I've just dug out my oldest heap after 18+ months and find the bags burried at the bottom have not fully decomposed and are behaving like leaves in a compost heap. So I believe turning is required, especially if one wanted to run a compost turnover time of less than 6 months. |
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| Ali Syme |
With a compost heap in general it's important to allow oxygen in - since it's oxygen and methane with the heat react to create carbon dioxide and water. PLA, the raw cornstarch material, couldn't itself be made into something so thin so I suspect starch additives are used to bond the bags. But not to fear - the thinner the better, and more air passing through your compost heap the better, and especially compostable laminates. |
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| gnome |
this thread is fauty - it keeps saying there is a new post when there isnt. | ||||
| wellington womble |
I have a turning composter I emptied a couple of weeks ago, and there were a few cornstarch bags in it. But nothing like all of the ones I have ever put in there, so some at least must degrade. I have no idea how many were in there, but I'm guessing I found maybe 5 percent? Presumably the last ones to go in. | ||||
| gnome |
so you can compost those compostible bags - if you have a turning compostor, and if you don't put too many in, and iff you give it enough time. it isnt a total failure, but it clearly isn't the answer to our problems either. back to the drawing board. | ||||
| Ali Syme |
You can compost the bags in a home composter in 36 months. Not a failure. Just not good for people who use a lot of bags. | ||||
| gnome |
or if there were unambigous instructions on them, and council's could arrange collection from people who dont have gardens. | ||||
| Ali Syme |
If they're going to collect them we might as well use PP bags so they can be recycled. and you'd need to have several 10s of kilos to make it worth the council picking them up. | ||||
| Maxwell Smart |
Re: Degrading
There are different types and qualities of biodegradable bags. Some will degrade quicker than others. But generally the ones that degrade quickly are quite flimsy and only suitable for certain types of goods. I still don't understand why people in the UK don't go shopping with a box as they do in Canada. Easier to carry and infinitely more reusable. Plus your groceries don't fall over in transport. |
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| Ali Syme |
That's what happens in mainland Europe as well - and they use glass bottles instead of PET bottles in a lot of places. I'm seeing more and more reusable bags made from woven PP - which is certainly an improvement. | ||||
| gnome |
i used to shop using boxes - but i found that after about a mile my arms are screaming out in agony - heavy boxes are not comfortable to carry over great distances. i now use a strong re-usable bag that is quite adequate for the job, and infinetely easier to carry. | ||||
| Trev |
Bring back the delivery "boy" on a bike. A standard size delivery box loyalty scheme - where they drop of the box and you return the previous empty box. Butcher, baker, grocer, fish monger, farm shop etc... | ||||
| gnome |
thats a sound idea - but how many trips would he have to make to deliver one average sized families shopping? the truth is, we consume more than we did 50 years ago. also, excess packaging doesnt help. but one of those three wheel trailer bikes would be good. |
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| Ali Syme |
So the weaker and smaller the bag the more bags you'll need for your average family's shopping. So we should agree to some degree that the large reusable bags you can get are the best we can hope for in the short term? | ||||
| gnome |
yes. and if you use cloth bags, you have something that comes from a renewable source, will last a long time, is easily recycled, and will have a smaller environmental impact. | ||||
| Ali Syme |
Recycling doesn't really cover a carbon footprint. Most bottles that are put out to recycle in the UK are sent to China on fuel-guzzling ships - hence I try find out who's taking my bottles and what it's turned in to at the other end. So a good strong natural fiber bag will do! They're more pleasing to look at as well and a good advertising tool for supermarkets. | ||||
| gnome |
i agree. the best and most honest recycling is local. items theat are collected and recycled/ reused locally. it uses less fuel and you know that it really is being recycled, not just exported to someone-elses-problem-land |
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| Ali Syme |
There's a company called Anson Foodservice - they have their own fancy £2m machine that converts plastic bottles to usable material and they have a range which is made from 50% recycled material and so 100% recyclable. 50% by industry standards is a lot! And this is a big UK company who's stepped up and invested in RPET. I think I'll save my bottles up and post them directly to them 
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| Maxwell Smart |
Yes for many 50% is a lot, but there is no reason why they shouldn't be using 100% PCR as it is viable and is already in use. The primary reason that they don't to go higher than 30-50% is most consumers won't accept the "quality" of the finished product - a slightly green tinge with tiny bubbles in the plastic which doesn't affect the product's performance. Also I was quite excited to read this article on the BBC about Closed Loop recycling. It is a new facility based in London capable of producing food grade plastic from 100% PCR. |
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| Ali Syme |
Yes and they're opening up another place soon giving them a total output of 75,000tons annually. But Anson CAN'T make 100% PCR - it wouldn't be food grade and you can't risk contaminates for packaging that's in regular contact with food. | ||||
| Maxwell Smart |
I don't know about Anson - are they producing using the Closed Loop product? As my understanding was the Closed Loop product was food grade even at 100%. |
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| Ali Syme |
Anson invested in machinery to produce PET scrap from bottle bales. They mix 50% scrap and 50% virgin PET - sourcing their bottles from UK sources. You can use more scrap to make bottles than you can to make other packaging - so it won't stop virgin PET being used but hopefully it will be a competitively priced and UK available PET source. | ||||
| Maxwell Smart |
sent you a pm | ||||
| Maxwell Smart |
Not sure who is doing the innocent bottles but if i recall they are 100% PCR. But perhaps drinks is a different story? | ||||
| Ali Syme |
Bottles are easier to make with recycled PET but it's rigid packaging that can't deal with 100%. Innocent used to be PLA but switched to rPET - after a sizable investment! It's not easy to get rPET in the UK at the moment. |