3/12/2021 Are 'biodegradable' plastic bags any better for the planet?

| Otago Daily Times Online News

Wednesday, 23 May 2018

Are 'biodegradable' plastic bags any better for the

planet?
News (/news) >  National (/news/national)
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Eight million tonnes of plastic - bottles, packaging and other waste - are dumped into the ocean every year.
Photo: Getty Images

While companies have moved to rid their stores of single-use plastic bags, researchers are now
questioning whether their "biodegradable" replacements are any better.
A European study published today in the journal Royal Society Open Science argues existing industry
standards and testing methods weren't good enough to predict the biodegradability of single-use
plastic carrier bags within lakes, rivers and oceans.
That was due to the fact that not enough was known about how these materials break down in the
environment - and shortcomings in the test procedures themselves.
Products that passed a biodegradability test developed for freshwater environments could still exhibit
extremely slow rates of biodegradation if they become deposited within marine habitats, the
researchers wrote, "with direct repercussions for their environmental impacts and fate".
"Successfully addressing these knowledge gaps is a key requirement for developing new
biodegradability standard(s) for lightweight carrier bags."
Thomas Neitzert, a professor of engineering at Auckland University of Technology and the president of
Engineers for Social Responsibility, said the new research helped "destroy" the thinking a plastic bag
with a label "biodegradable" was safe for the environment.
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3/12/2021 Are 'biodegradable' plastic bags any better for the planet? | Otago Daily Times Online News

"The current standards are not taking properly into account real-life conditions and are therefore
underestimating the break-down times of plastic materials," Neitzert told the NZ Science Media Centre.
The standards were also not accounting for the damage of break-down particles on marine life when
they are digested, he said.
"A biodegradable plastic bag is potentially dangerous to marine life from the moment it enters the
water until it dissolves into micro or nanoparticles over many years."
Neitzert, who was not one of the study authors, said the co-existence of conventional plastic bags and
so-called biodegradable plastic bags of compostable materials was also upsetting current recycling
operations and is confusing the general public.
"Biodegradable plastic bags are in many cases made from crude oil, requiring carbon-based
production processes and are emitting CO2 or methane when degrading," he said.
"On the way to a low-carbon economy, we should, therefore, carry a reusable bag made from cloth or
jute, like our parents did."
As with many standards, there was a gap between laboratory testing and the outside world with its
constant changing conditions - in this case concerning seasons, temperatures and concentrations of
chemicals.
Plastics existed in wastewaters, freshwater and the marine environment and standards never covered
all of them, he said.
In fact, the standards were usually underestimating the life of a plastic product by years and sometimes
decades.
The test durations were usually only up to six months - apart from marine conditions where they go out
to two years - and test conditions were not precisely described in terms of inocula and material sizes,
Neitzert explained.
University of Auckland chemical sciences lecturer Dr Ivanhoe Leung said there was no single magic
bullet to solve the plastic pollution problem.
"It is important that governments and the international community to review current international
standards and testing methods so that we can get realistic models to predict the biodegradability of
plastic materials in different environments," Leung said.
"Research funding should be spent so that universities and industries alike can develop materials that
have better properties, balancing the needs for durability and biodegradability.
"Alternative methods, such as the use of plastic-eating bacteria, should be investigated so that we can
find new ways to break down and recycle existing plastic wastes in a more efficient manner."
Professor Kim Pickering, of the University of Waikato's School of Engineering, said it would be best to
design products from the outset with end of life in mind, while looking for ways to add value to waste
plastic.
"We should be thinking carefully before describing things as 'single-use' plastics."
New Zealanders use around 1.6 billion single-use plastic bags every year, which end up in landfills,
litter, or oceans, where they can choke animals or break down and enter our own food chain when fish
swallow them.

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3/12/2021 Are 'biodegradable' plastic bags any better for the planet? | Otago Daily Times Online News

This month, the Warehouse Group became the latest retailer to ditch all single-use plastic checkout
bags, replacing them with fully compostable bags.
Those plant-based bags were designed to disintegrate in compost within 12 weeks with no toxic effect.
The move will be rolled out across the all 254 Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Noel Leeming and
Torpedo7 stores in the country by the end of the year.
This move comes off the back of Foodstuffs and Countdown's plans to phase out single-use plastic
bags by the end of 2018.
NZME. (/source/nzme.)

1 (/news/national/are-biodegradable-plastic-bags-any-bette

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Fitzroy Wed, 23/05/2018 - 3:51pm # (/comment/9014#comment-9014)

It has always puzzled me why the USA seems to have adopted the brown paper bag at their super
markets and NZ (and many other countries) went with plastic bags. I would have thought NZ could
make the leap to brown paper bags, if there was a high enough profile campaign. NZ does grow
enough raw material to make them after all. A shop I visit in South D uses brown paper bags and I
always save them for reuse several times before composting or recycling them, so their lack of
longevity isn't an issue.

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