Tag Archives: plastic ban

ENSO Plastics Announces Biodegradable Plastic Solutions for the Philippines

MAKATI, Philippines–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The grace period for Makati City Ordinance No. 2003-095 has ended. This ordinance bans the use, sale and distribution of plastics that are non-biodegradable. To help manufacturers comply with the city ordinance ENSO Plastics announces two new biodegradable technologies for the Philippines market – ENSO RENEW™ and ENSO RESTORE™.

ENSO RENEW™ is a unique Renewable Thermo Polymer (RTP) derived from the waste process of agriculture, with a carbon footprint 75% lower than polyethylene. It is a high heat renewable biopolymer that provides home and industrial compostability as well as being marine degradable. ENSO RENEW™ is designed to meet the needs of applications looking for renewable solutions to meet new legislative requirements utilizing fast growing plant based material and rapid biodegradation. Manufacturers are also able to blend ENSO RENEW™ with traditional plastics for partially renewable solutions that are durable.

ENSO RESTORE™ is the latest development of biodegradable additives offering superior improvements to biodegradable performance and process-ability/compatibility and eliminating the historical higher scrap rates of competing additives, creating a huge environmental and cost advantage. ENSO RESTORE™ is a leading edge technology that accelerates the natural biodegradation without any disruption to disposal method or performance. ENSO RESTORE™ biodegradable additives work with light weighted packaging, thin film applications, and heavier injection molded parts in all major resin types: PE, PP, PET, PS, Rubber, Nitrile, polyurethane and more.

ENSO Plastics solutions are quick to implement with minimal or no change in current manufacturing. It’s quick and easy to integrate biodegradable technologies that comply with the recently implemented laws without difficulty or expense.

About ENSO Plastics™

ENSO Plastics, LLC is an environmental plastics solutions company with proprietary biodegradable and biobased solutions, bringing to market cost competitive cutting-edge solutions to meet the market demands of sustainability, home or industrial compostability, landfill biodegradability, marine degradability and recyclability.

ENSO Plastics’ mission is to solve the global plastics pollution issue by bringing the best technologies to market, finding solutions with the greatest and most productive impact for the plastics industry and providing answers that can be trusted to integrate seamlessly – a platform that companies can stand behind with confidence.

If you are interested in learning more about ENSO Plastics technologies, please visit us at http://www.ensoplastics.com or call +00-1-602-639-4228.
Contacts

ENSO Plastics
Paul Wightman, +00-1-602-639-4228
http://www.ensoplastics.com

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130620006486/en

Important California Notice
California law prohibits the sale of plastic packaging and plastic products that are labeled with the terms ‘biodegradable,’ ‘degradable,’ or ‘decomposable,’ or any form of those terms, or that imply in any way that the item will break down, biodegrade or decompose in a landfill or other environment. These restrictions apply to all sales in or into the State of California, including such sales over the Internet.

Plastic Bag Bans

Bag Bans – Is That Really The Big Issue?

I recently read a short, but insightful, article surrounding the issues of bag bans.  The bag industry claims that banning bags will result in job loss, negative effects to local economies, hidden taxes, and lower environmental impact compared to paper, etc.  These are important issues to consider, but they really don’t address the real issue of lightweight plastic bags – litter.  The crux of the bag bans are associated with littering of bags whether intentional or not.  I think we have all seen these bags floating in the streets, in bushes and trees, and worse, marine environments. The bag littler looks ugly and in worse case scenarios it kills wildlife!

I think the real issue with bag bans is that we are not identifying the main problem, litter.

Yes, it is true that plastic bags are more environmentally friendly when comparing the carbon footprint, but in the whole scheme of things, should we really be pushing lightweight plastic bags over alternative bag solutions like reusable bags or heavy gauge plastics bags?  When is the last time you’ve seen a cotton reusable bag hanging in a tree?  You don’t!  They are much too heavy and they would end up going to the landfill, just like most of the other plastic packaging that comes with products we purchase.

Who is to blame for this problem? Can we change human behavior?  What can be done to improve processes so that bags are not the problem?  If there was a value to bags, like aluminum cans, would this result in a different outcome?  A recent study titled: “Plastic Film and Bag Recycling Collection: National Reach Study” found that over 91% of U.S. residents have access to bag recycling facilities, but consumers are not utilizing them.  Is bag recycling just too inconvenient?  Not profitable enough for the recyclers?   These are all questions we have asked to try to solve this problem, but perhaps there is a bigger question that we should be asking ourselves:  Are there applications that we should not utilize plastic in?

If we zoom out of the minutia and look at the overall problem, human behavior is at the cause of all of these issues.  But, maybe we can’t change human behavior. Maybe there are some plastic applications, such as bags, that we as humans should say, “let’s just get rid of them, because we aren’t able to solve the problem -other than to ban them”?

This blog is not going to solve the problem or answer the question “to ban or not to ban”, but to bring up the questions that we should be asking ourselves. Maybe we should be ok with banning certain applications of plastics, if they are resulting in damage to our environment.  But, that doesn’t mean that we need to get rid of all plastics!  After all, plastics do have a lower carbon footprint than the alternatives -and it is the material that 25 years ago the environmentalists wanted choose instead of paper.  Who knows the absolute right answer?  If we do now walk away from plastic bags, it would not be the first time our US society has come full circle in their overall opinion…

See what people are saying about plastic bag bans.