Beyond labels: Identifying the value of bioplastics
The International Herald Tribune, July 7, 2008
Biodegradable plastic products offer the possibility of relieving consumers of guilt and manufacturers of the responsibilities associated with growing landfills and garbage-choked oceans. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, only 6.9 percent of plastics were recycled in the United States in 2006, partly because many plastics are composites of different materials and are hard to recycle. In addition, consumers have recently become more aware of how many products are oil-based, said Steve Davies, marketing director of NatureWorks, a company that makes a bioplastic from plants. With oil prices up sharply, ''it's now obvious to just about everybody that our overdependence on oil is bad for our environment, bad for our economy.''
The term bioplastics actually has two meanings: sometimes it is used to refer to plastics that contain a percentage of renewable materials; and sometimes to plastics that are both made from renewable materials and are biodegradable. This ambiguity - and the fact that some bioplastics may also contain petroleum-based polymers - can cloud the green pedigree of a product.
Meanwhile, studies show that consumers are also confused about terms like ''renewable'' and ''biodegradable.'' ''Consumers believe that if it's renewable, then it's inherently good and it's inherently biodegradable,'' said Steve Mojo, executive director of the Biodegradable Products Institute, an advocacy group. ''They also believe that biodegradation is a magical process that will make things disappear.'' In fact, biodegradable means susceptible to degradation by microorganisms. But nothing actually breaks down in landfills. Modern landfills are, by design, hermetically sealed tombs for waste. Nor will biodegradable products necessarily break down if tossed on the side of the road or buried in a backyard. A less confusing term is compostable, which means a product that can be returned to the soil in a beneficial manner. ''Compostable tells a consumer what to do with it,'' Mojo said, ''whereas biodegradable doesn't.''
Read Full Article:
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)