How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter? Oxo-Biodegradable Plastics Federation: A new voice in an old debate
Posted on February 11, 2016 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsOxo-Biodegradable Plastics Federation: A new voice in an old debate | PlasticsToday.com.
Oxo-biodegradable plastics, or oxo-degradable plastics, as those who do not support the use of the technology prefer to call them, have come under considerable fire over the past few years. The reason for this is the widespread doubt that has arisen about the actual effectiveness of the technology. Does biodegradation actually occur with the use of this additive technology, or not?
It doesn’t, wrote the SPI (Washington, DC) in its 2013 position paper on the subject. The terms (i.e., “degradable,” “oxo-degradable,” “oxo-biodegradable,” “oxo-green” and “landfill degradable”) suggest that the products can undergo rapid degradation and biodegradation under many different end-of-life conditions. But, said the SPI, the main effect of oxidation is fragmentation, not biodegradation.
“Fragmentation of “degradable additives” for plastics is not the result of a biodegradation process but rather the result of a chemical reaction. The resulting fragments will remain in the environment. Fragmentation is not a solution to the waste problem, but rather the conversion of visible contaminants, such as bags, cutlery and packaging into invisible contaminants.”
This technology should be banned, too many doubts about the actual claim for biodegradation. The word oxobiodegradation was a recent invention by the oxo-industry to try to give their product more credence after it has come under increasing criticism in recent years as doing more damage than the claims of good the manufactures make.
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