Category Archives: Recycling

So What?


So WHAT?!

There is no question the biodegradation of traditional plastics is a reality, and YES plastics can now biodegrade in a landfill.  However, as was so eloquently posed to me recently, “SO WHAT!?” We make plastics for every purpose imaginable and when we are done with them, we thoughtlessly toss the plastics in the landfill out of sight, out of mind…but “SO WHAT”!? Does it really matter if those plastics last forever or for just a few years?  “SO WHAT”!?

Let’s look at the past 50 years: We used 7 million tons of plastic in 1960.  We increased that to 196 million tons in 2005 and are expected to exceed 365 million tons in 2015. “SO WHAT”!? We put almost 90% of our plastic waste in our landfills. That equates to over 300 million tons of plastic every year in the landfill. TONS.  Billions of tons filling up our landfills with plastic that will last pretty much forever.  And each of us continues to add TONS more every day.  If that is not enough to make you jump out of your seat and upgrade all of your plastic products to biodegradable…

 

Let’s look at things from a different view; The ENSO view.

 

Biodegradable Plastics –

Because we can reduce the volume of our landfills

Because we can build fewer landfills

Because every biodegradable plastic product you use can be converted to clean energy

Because we can choose plastics that work with nature rather than against it

Because your products can create a better world

Because WE created the mess and continue to do so

Because it’s this generation’s responsibility, not our children’s or our grandchildren’s

Because today you have a choice and tomorrow may be too late

Because your customers want it

Because you know it is the right thing to do

 

“SO WHAT” will you choose?

Coco-Colas plant bottle business plan

This isn’t the most recent use for those up to date with cokes plant bottle. This article however goes into a more detailed business view of Cokes decision and long term goals. Definitely worth the read, comment and let me know what you think!

http://www.greenwashingindex.com/ad_single.php?id=7083

Coca-Cola in green bottles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/coca-cola-green-plant-bottles

The software drinks giant has come up with a technology to use plant material in plastic bottles. But it is not an easy task

    Coca-Cola has come up with a formula that will reduce the use of plastic in making bottles. Photograph: George Frey/Rueters

    You could forgive Scott Vitters the occasional spate of Monday morning blues. As global head of sustainable packaging at The Coca-Cola Company, he has an unenviable job. Some might even call it impossible. Every day, consumers around the world slurp their way through 1.5 billion Coca-Cola products. Packaging those servings accounts for the most sizeable chunk of the company’s environmental footprint. Now Vitters’ bosses back at Coca-Cola’s Atlanta HQ are saying they want to double sales over the next decade.

    Yet today finds him surprisingly upbeat. Hitting UK shelves today is PlantBottle, what Vitters calls a “breakthrough technology” destined to green not just Coca-Cola but the entire packaging industry.

    “We know that we need to do more with less and we know that we can do that through technological innovations like PlantBottle”, he says.

    So how does it work? The theory is simple. Plastic bottles are currently made out of a variety of petroleum-based materials. What the chemistry wonks in Coca-Cola’s labs have done is replace some of those with plant materials.

    The result is to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions by 8-10% in the process. Furthermore, the plant-based solution is an identical match with polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a recyclable plastic already widely used by Coca-Cola.

    “This isn’t about an innovation that’s just a little green widget or flavour of the day … We’re taking the next step of the journey to decouple our plastic from fossil fuels”, Vitters insists.

    The numbers seem to back him. Coca-Cola expects to shift over 200 million packs in the UK this year as it switches 500ml bottles of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero to the greener formula.

    The UK is no guinea pig. PlantBottle has already been around for a couple of years, rolled out first in Denmark to coincide with the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen. Coca-Cola currently produces around five billion packs in twenty markets.

    Vitters is adamant that the new bottle makes long-term financial as well as environmental sense. Although the plant alternative currently costs more than petroleum, he expects that to drop to parity or below by 2020 – due to predicted oil price increases and efficiencies in the PlantBottle supply chain.

    Recyclability is another big win. As one of the toughest, most efficient polymers around, PET can be reused many times. That way, the plant material stays within a “continuous loop” – one up on biodegradable plastics that go to landfill and “then sit like a petroleum bottle”.

    The impacts across industry could also be profound. Coca-Cola is working with Heinz to help it produce a PlantBottle-packaged ketchup. Toyota is also said to be interested to use the technology for the seats in its cars.

    “Across all commodity plastics, this same pathway could be followed. For HDPE [High Density Polyethylene] plastic, polyethenes, films and even PVC”, says Vitters.

    Although Coca-Cola is in the process of patenting the application of the plant-based technology (known as Bio-MEG) to containers, Vitters insists that Coca-Cola ultimately intends for the technology to be open. “This is bigger than Coke”, he says magnanimously. Vitters isn’t even again arch rivals Pepsi getting a look in too. “We believe that our competition will need to be part of this journey.” Coca Cola’s sustainable packaging chief may have skipped to work this morning, but his job is still far from complete.

    Work to do

    PlantBottle is a step in the right direction, but it’s far from the final destination. The plant-based alternative only covers ethyleneglycol – around 22.5% of PET by weight. Coca-Cola has yet to develop a commercially viable plant solution for the other 77.5%, comprising the petroleum-based compound terephthalic acid.

    Vitters admits that his marketing team would have been “much happier” if the ratios were the other way around. As it is, the US beverage giant hopes to have a market-ready, plant-based alternative to terephthalic acid by 2015. A date for its integration into brand packaging is yet to be set.

    His problems don’t stop there. ‘Plant-based materials’ all sounds very wholesome and green, but not if their production requires excessive water use, pushes up food prices (by using arable land for non-food purposes) or relies on genetically-modified technologies.

    As the Coca-Cola packaging head admits: “We knew inherently that just because it’s a plant, it isn’t better for the environment by any stretch of the imagination…this programe fundamentally rests on the ability to demonstrate proven social and environmental sustainability.”.”

    For the moment, the company has turned to Brazil and the bio-ethanol extracted from the country’s vast sugar cane plantations. As a major buyer of Brazilian sugar already, Vitters says Coca-Cola has a “comfort for getting the programme started” there.. Not that the social and environmental record of Brazillian sugar is perfect. Far from it. Vitters admits there is still “a lot of growth room to meet [Coca Cola’s] sustainability criteria”. As a result, the company is working with WWF towards a sugar certification scheme in Brazil.

    In the future, Vitters conceded that it’s not sustainable to “source only from Brazillian sugar cane. If PlantBottle takes off in the way he predicts, Coca-Cola will have to look elsewhere, as well as to other plants. Excessive demand could present supply problems as well as pushing sugar prices up – something, Vitters jokes, that “wouldn’t be a good career choice” for him.

    Wisely wary

    The clever polymer chemists in Coca-Cola’s labs have identified other potential feedstocks, but the company is wary about jumping in too fast.

    “We need to be very careful about expanding use of land at a time when we think agricultural environments for feeding a growing population are going to be essential”, says Vitters, who acknowledges the need to proceed “responsibly”..

    The US drinks giant is therefore looking to second-generation technologies focused on agricultural waste, such as switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and fruit peel.

    Even then, challenges still exist. Supply is one. Finding such agricultural bi-products in commercial volumes is no easy task. Land productivity represents another issue. In many parts of the world, agricultural waste is typically returned to the soil as a natural fertiliser.

    “Disruptive” though PlantBottle may be, it falls far from enabling Vitters to fulfil his sustainable packaging brief completely. Commercialising a plant-based solution for the terephthalic acid portion of PET would help considerably. But we still have to wait for 2020 until Coca-Cola bottles of all sizes boast the 22.5% plant content.

    Nagging at his mind as well must be the fact that Coca-Cola was recently thrown out of the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index. More galling still, the Index praised Pepsi as a “supersector leader”.

    There’s a silver lining, though as Dow Jones did award Coca-Cola an “uptick” for its packaging and material sourcing – another reason Vitters’ Monday shouldn’t be too blue.

How the Green Trend has Affected Product Design

Sustainable Future: How The Green Trend Has Affected Product Design


 

By LX Group on 12 September 2011

Sustainable Future: How The Green Trend Has Affected Product Design

It’s difficult to determine when the green trend started – whether it was back in the 90s when we all decided to save the whales and ban aerosol sprays or whether it was much recently when Al Gore won an Oscar and Nobel Prize for his travelling PowerPoint-documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” But, no matter when it began, there’s no denying that people these days have become more environmentally conscious, and the green trend is here to stay. Product designers have realized that everyone is going eco-crazy, whether that means going on green vacations, using green electronic products, and even having green weddings. And today, when designing any product, whether it’s a computer, a couch or the latest smart phone, being environmentally-friendly is almost a requirement. Of course, this goes without saying that green product demand has also increased and environmentally friendly products not only save money, but get profits flowing in.

Let’s look at the ways that this green trend has influenced product design.

‘Green’ Product Design Criteria
To design a truly green product, it must meet some or all of these criteria:
• Be non-toxic so as not to harm the environment, people and pets; In electronics products for example, must contain lead-free pcb boards.
• It can be recycled or recyclable, to reduce the amount of trash in the landfills;
• It must use energy responsibly, whether that means that products use only renewable energy sources such as wind, solar or geothermal power or will reduce energy use, such as electronic products that go into ‘sleep mode’ to conserve energy.
• To a certain extent, it must support environmental responsibility, such as eco-friendly practices, creating more green or local jobs, and even use fair and truthful marketing when selling their products

‘Green’ Materials
Understanding the materials used for any process is essential for any project and one of the first things many designers must master is the use of materials. Unlike 20 years ago, eco-friendly materials are now more available than ever. Eco-friendly plastics for example, which can be recycled or biodegradable, are now more widely available, but are also as tough and durable as their regular counterparts. Take the ubiquitous plastic water bottle, for example – simple to design but the material takes hundreds of years to decompose, and is quite toxic to the environment. Arizona-based Enso Bottles has developed a truly biodegradable plastic, by using an additive that helps the bottle degrade in as little as 250 days, without releasing any harmful gasses. Electronic manufacturers also use green materials for their own products. For example, LCD TVs which use carbon neutral biopaint, smart phones with bioplastic enclosures and electronic products which feature lead-free electronics pcb boards.

Product Manufacture
It’s not enough that your materials are eco-friendly, but the way you create your product should be as well. Consumers truly care about how a product is made, and so the construction of a product must also fit within green standards. For example, Kyocera, a Japanese firm, creates their own energy from solar power generating systems for their manufacturing plants and offices around the world. One of the problems of any manufacturing plant is not just the energy they use, but the amount of waste produced. Canada-based OKI Printing solutions, which produces printers and printing accessories, have reduced the wastes and harmful materials from their process, including the total removal of hexavalent chromium from their screws and implementing a waste segregation policy which has reduced their waste by 70%.

Electronic waste or e-waste is another prevalent problem, this time on the side of electronic product designers. In many cases, such as in with the CEH (Center for Environmental Health) in the United States, electronic design houses are encouraged to, design products that are eco-friendly and safe for the environment, whether that means creating non-toxic programs, or creating products which can easily be recycled.

Product Disposal
Aside from just waste disposal, the end-of-life disposal is just as important – what happens when a product is no longer useful and must be replaced? Previously, manufacturers just let their old products linger in the landfills, but for today’s environmentally-conscious consumer, that simply won’t do. Many manufacturers recycle their products, or donate their waste to other companies or organizations who can reuse their old materials. Electronics designers and manufacturers should, from the very beginning of the design process, should create “Take-back” campaigns wherein consumers are encouraged to bring their used electronics back to the manufacturer for proper disposal or better yet, recycling. Apple Computers in 2009, for example, figured out that they were emitting 9.6 million metric tons of greenhouses gases every year. So, within the next year, they re-evaluated their entire process – from designing, to manufacturing, transportation, product use, recycling and even how they their facilities (office, stores etc.) and made numerous changes that drastically reduced their carbon emissions. Their biggest expenditure when it came to carbon emissions was the manufacturing process itself (45%) and so they drastically reduced this by redesigning their products to be smaller, thinner and lighter, thus dramatically lowering their over-all carbon footprint.

The green trend, it seems, is here to stay. Electronic product designers and manufacturers must comply or be left behind. By keeping their products and processes eco-friendly, everyone – the designers, manufacturers and even the retailers are not just protecting their bottom-line, but the environment as well, ensuring that we all preserve the planet one product at a time.

image http://moralcoral.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/sustainability-for-dummies/

Coke bottle Recycling Plant reopens

Embattled Coke Bottle Recycling Plant Reopens

 

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2011/08/22/embattled-coke-bottle-recycling-plant-reopens/

The troubled Coca-Cola joint-venture recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C., is set to reopen today after being shuttered by the company in March.

But Coke is considering selling its 49 percent stake in the plant, according to the Wall Street Journal

Coke and its partner in the factory, United Resource Recovery Corp. LLC, closed the factory down earlier this year to restructure the plant and improve the quality of the plastic being produced. All 50 factory workers and most of the plant’s office staff were laid off when the factory closed.

“We are restarting the plant,” said Carlos Gutierrez, president and CEO of URRC, PlasticsNews.com reports. “We feel pretty good on the results from our retooling efforts.”

Over the last half-year the Spartanburg team has been trying to more efficiently recycle old bottles into food-grade resin and correct certain operational problems. Prior to the fix, certain lightweight bottles had a habit of flying off the production line, Plasticsnews reports.

On reopening, the plant is likely to process half the amount of bottles it was originally designed to handle, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The plant, once described as the world’s largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling complex, opened in 2009. It was supposed to produce 100 million pounds of recycled plastic when fully operational, or about two billion 20-ounce Coke bottles.

Bio degradable Vs. Recycling

capitoll hill enso plastics

 

 

Capitol Hill


I recently had the pleasure of going back east to DC involving meetings on Capitol Hill where the discussion of biodegradable materials in the recycling stream was the main focus. After the representative from a recycling organization gave his presentation, I then gave mine. We were perceived to be in opposite corners, so we were asked to speak in the same meetings so as to address any clarifying questions that might have come up after our presentations. It dawned on me that this perception brought on by the recycling organizations (APR and NAPCOR) are in actuality NOT TRUE!


Truth


ENSO and the recycling community are very much in alignment with the goal of saving our natural resources as long as possible. When ENSO embarked on the overwhelming mission to eliminate plastic pollution from our planet, we had recyclers and their processes as the #1 consideration-everything we came up with had to pass the scrutiny of the question, “does this material have any adverse effect on the recycling stream.” Many years and engineering feats later, we did it!!! We have had dozens of recyclers (or reprocessors) test and actually run the ENSO material through their process to see if there are any issues with the ENSO plastic. With no exception, 100% of them have indicated that they would never know it was an ENSO bottle if we have not told them. Scientifically, that has to be true because our mix does not even chemically bond with the plastic it is being mixed with.


Recycling & Pollution


ENSO and the recycling community are very much in alignment, so much that we feel we are at stake with their success -the recyclers are in a tough market currently, as it seems they are being diminished on every turn. They are not allowed to participate in decisions regarding innovations to help the environment, but rather are left to deal with the new materials as they show up in their processing. Some of the reprocessors are worried about staying in business because of the issues arising from trying to sort out extremely incompatible materials like PLA (corn based plastic) from their PET bottle stream. They have indicated to us that they literally cheered because an environmental plastic was made that did not affect their bottom line by contaminating their recyclate material. Daily, companies using plastic are getting increased pressure to “stop polluting the environment”. For instance, almost daily I see news about plastic bags being banned around the world. And although the blame should not rest solely on manufacturing, something HAS to be done. We need to demand a new attitude towards the use of plastic. ENSO is a real and tangible solution to not only keep recycling intact, but also do much, much more. Globally, the human race is only recycling 5% of all plastics…think about that for a minute. Since when did you ever accept a 5% success rate as a viable solution under any circumstance? Could you imagine an oil spill clean-up effort saying, “Welp, we’ve cleaned up 5% of the spill, the rest well act as if there is no issue.” Yet it is happening right before our eyes when it comes to addressing the end of life issue of plastics. Why not make plastics biodegradable so when they are thrown into a landfill, they can contribute to the growing practice of creating clean energy from landfill natural gas? Renewable, green, clean, smart…intelligent -all describe this value proposition! Companies using it, and handling it will also add the description, “profitable” –but that’s their little secret.

 

ENSO

 

Our message is clear, “recycle ENSO plastic wherever, and whenever you can. But if you fail, (and there is a 95% chance of that happening), know that you are still in harmony with our planet because this plastic will biodegrade naturally utilizing the earths microorganisms (microbes).” The environmental issues surrounding plastic use are rising, not decreasing. People that recycle, will always recycle-they will not change their values to all of a sudden become “litter bugs”, because something is recyclable and biodegradable. A national poll done on our behalf supports this, and also says that 61% of America believes it is more important to have plastic biodegradable than recyclable. Also, recycling will not rid the planet of plastic pollution, just delay the fact that inevitably everything plastic will end up in a landfill. ENSO says that we can have both, and if you are a consumer, you should demand both, and if you are a manufacture, you would do well offering both. What more can manufactures do? (They have already reduced our plastics down to where the next step for a bottle is a zip lock bag!) The answer? Companies and brands can get smart and innovative. Doing this now creates opportunity for growth in market share because they are seen as smart and innovative, and consumers like both to have that coveted loyalty. We can have recycling and ENSO’s solution to long term plastic pollution a complimentary package to bridge the battle between pro-environment vs. plastic use. My mom called that, “having your cake, and eating it too.” We each might be required to pay a penny or two extra per bottle for this added environmental value, but with the way things are going right now with all of the plastic building up on our lands and seas -“do the math” is another momism that is very appropriate. – Del Andrus

Single Use Bag Bans:Yay or Nay?

Whether you are well versed in the single use plastic bag debacle or if you are just hearing about it, action needs to be taken to prevent these breed of bags from causing any more damage. Many countries and cities have either banned single use plastic bags completely or have placed a tax on the plastic bag. Getting rid of these plastic bags entirely makes sense for environmental issues but whats happening in response is cross contamination, and the waste of reusable bags as well. What if we had biodegradable single use plastic bags that were also recyclable, a new start for the single use earth friendly plastic bag. ENSO has the technology to create single use biodegradable & recyclable plastic bags, Why not take advantage of this?- Megan Bentley

 

PLASTIC BAGS ART

This is an interesting article that inspired this blog, Make sure to give it a read there is a lot of great information!

 

Countries That Have Banned Plastic Bags

We all know how terrible plastic bags are for the environment—they choke wildlife, they don’t break down in landfills (or in oceans), they add to our demand for oil, and they aren’t easy to recycle, which is the biggest reason why 90 percent of plastic bags in the U.S. are not recycled.

Yet an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year—380 billion of those in the U.S.—and governments have been slow-moving at best to do anything about them.

Starting January 1, 2011, single-use non-biodegradable plastic bags will be outlawed in Italy. And while plenty of questions remain about the ban’s rules and efficacy, it’s a considerable leap, seeing as how Italy uses 25% of all the plastic bags in Europe — around 25 billion a year.

Neighboring Bulgaria‘s move to impose a tax on plastic bags as of July 1, 2011, as reported in the Sophia Echo is only the latest attempt across Eastern Europe and the Middle East to discourage the use of disposable bags.

The nascent Environment Ministry in Syria – where an estimated 15 million bags are consumed each day just Damascus and the area around in the capital — has distributed fabric and paper bags to markets as part of a campaign to get people to just say “no” to plastic bags. While paper bags are not particularly environmentally friendly in their manufacture, they pose less of a danger to animals.

In the United Arab Emirates, dead camels have been found with lumps of plastic in their stomach weighing up to 30 kilograms — the equivalent of 4,000 plastic bags. According to the UAE’s Ministry of Environment and Water, which plans to ban plastic bags in the UAE by 2012, 85 percent of emirate residents “say they have heard or read about the detrimental effects of plastic bags, but fewer than half do anything about it.”

Turkey is also taking slow steps toward breaking the plastic-bag habit, though they have not been without some implementation troubles. The Kadıköy district of Istanbul was praised last year for being the first municipality in Turkey to ban plastic bags.

In California, the ban started in San Francisco in select stores; if pending legislation goes through, it could soon expand to all stores not only in the city, but in the entire state. A similar ban exists in coastal North Carolina and was recently passed in Portland.

 

In 2007, Modbury became the first town to ban the plastic bag in Britain, where 13 billion plastic bags are given away every year. If customers forget to bring their own, reports the Times Online, “a range of bags made of recycled cotton with organic and fairtrade certification will be available from £1.50 to £3.95 and cheaper paper and biodegradeable cornstarch bags will cost 5p and 10p.” Other cities have followed suit, some just a few months ago, and there are efforts to make London plastic bag-free by the time the Olympics come around in 2010. According to the Daily Mail, “Londoners use 1.6billion plastic bags a year – for an average of just 20 minutes per bag.”

Mexico City adopted a ban last summer—the second major city in the western hemisphere to do so.

India seems to be taking the lead in bans on plastic bags, although enforcement is sometimes questionable. Cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Karwar, Tirumala, Vasco, Rajasthan all have a ban on the bag.

A ban went into effect (with little notice) in Rangoon, Burma, late last year.

In neighboring China, the use of plastic bags is restricted.

Plastic bags have been banned in Bangladesh since 2002, after being found to be responsible for the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged most of the country.

Rwanda is the country, which has had a ban on plastic bags for years, has a reputation for being one of the cleanest nations not only on the continent, but in the world.

Sydney’s Oyster Bay was the first Australian suburb to ban plastic bags. Twelve towns in Australia are now said to be plastic bag-free—an effort to cut down on the estimated 6.7 billion plastic bags used in Australia every year.

http://current.com/1k2vd4c

 

 

Does Biodegradable Equal Less Recycling?

 

Let’s say that someone hands you two water bottles. One of the bottles is made with biodegradable plastics and the other is not. Which one do you feel is the more environmentally friendly product? You’re probably thinking the biodegradable plastic bottle, right? A majority of people would agree with you including myself. Now, because the bottle is biodegradable do you think that consumers will feel less guilty littering and feel less motivated to recycle? This is something to think about but lets take a look at some statistics. After surveying over 350 people, more than 90% stated that if a plastic bottle was labeled biodegradable that they would not feel comfortable littering the bottle on the ground. Another thing to take into consideration is that 75% of the people that took the survey also believed that it could range from less than a year to 25 years for a biodegradable bottle to biodegrade. It seems that many of these people are aware that biodegrading is not an instant process, whether they have researched the facts or are just going off of what they think. Did you know that in a perfect anaerobic environment ENSO plastics will fully biodegrade in 250 days but in a microbial environment like a landfill it may take longer.

Now back to a question I asked earlier, because the bottle is biodegradable do you think that consumers will feel less guilty littering and feel less motivated to recycle? Think about what choice you would make and then ask yourself why you would take that action.

What it comes down to is that by labeling something biodegradable it doesn’t mean it will result in less recycling or more littering. We all need to be aware of the facts so our choices will actually make a difference.

Debunking the Myths of the Paper vs. Plastic Debate, Part II

Photo by eco-wisdom

Last week, we weighed in on the Paper vs. Plastic Debate, and examined the pros and cons of each where waste, energy, and resources are concerned. This week, we’ll take a look at how the contenders fare when it comes to pollution and recycling.

Pondering Pollution

Myth #3: Plastic is man-made and chemical-based, so it’s better to choose paper.

When it comes to pollution, plastic has become the chosen whipping boy, but in fact, craft paper production requires huge amounts of chemicals, that end up in our rivers each year, and are released into the air contributing to air pollution. Plastic production generates about 60% fewer greenhouse gases than turning wood pulp into paper bags.

Let’s consider PLA. It’s been touted as a panacea for the plastic problem, because it’s compostable, and comes from a renewable resource. But upon closer examination, unless the corn crop is grown organically, it still requires fossil fuel-based fertilizers and chemicals that cause other environmental problems and does not reduce our dependency on oil. In fact, one study found that the production of corn- and other bio-based plastics actually use more fossil fuels than a standard PET plastic. PLA isn’t as eco-friendly as it seems.

When it comes to waste and pollution, the frontrunner so far is the bag made from biodegradable plastic.

Reconsidering Recycling

Myth #4: It’s easier to recycle paper, so it’s the more sustainable choice.

Photo by greennature.com

In reality, it is more efficient to recycle plastic, requiring about 91% less energy pound for pound than paper, but the sad truth is that the recycling track record for either bag isn’t good. Only about 10-15% of paper bags, and just 1-3% of plastic bags are recycled; although paper bags have a higher recycle rate than plastic, every new paper bag is made from virgin pulp instead of recycled fibers for better strength, while many plastic bags are made from once-recycled plastic polymers.

PLA and other bio-plastics get another strike when it comes to recyclability. They cannot be recycled with regular plastics, but so often are, creating an expensive problem of having to sort them from the rest of the plastics.

Plastics that are biodegradable in the landfill and under natural conditions, like ENSO’s products, are recyclable with conventional plastics, and do not contaminate the recycling stream.

The Bottom Line

Choosing paper or plastic is still a tough decision because biodegradable plastics are not yet mainstream. The biodegradable disposable bag is the best solution because it can be recycled if that’s an option, or thrown into the landfill where it will biodegrade in a relatively short amount of time. In addition, the industry is moving toward renewable sources, like algae, for plastic production, improving biodegradable plastics even further. For now, bring your reusable bags, or choose a plastic bag and reuse it or recycle it, and keep up with latest developments on the biodegradable plastics front.

Debunking the Myths of the Paper vs. Plastic Debate, Part I

Image by Aeropause

Standing at the grocery store checkout, realizing you forgot your reusable shopping bags, or if you did remember them, you don’t have enough, you’re faced with the decision: paper or plastic? First, you’re momentarily overcome with pangs of guilt; second, the inner dialogue commences. You’re a deer in the headlights, frozen, afraid to make a move.

There’s a lot of confusion surrounding the Great Bag Debate, much of it perpetuated by misinformation, common assumptions, and a whole lot of greenwashing. For years, it was thought that the better choice for the environment was paper, but it turns out that paper and plastic bags are just about equal in pros and cons. They both use resources, cause pollution, and generate many tons of waste that more often than not, ends up in the landfill.

To further complicate the conundrum, there is more than just paper and plastic to consider these days; plastic alternatives, including corn-based PLA, and landfill biodegradable plastics are commonly being used in packaging. As eco-conscious consumers, which bag do we choose, and how can feel good about our choice?

The Resources and Energy Pitfall

Myth #1: Paper is made from a renewable resource, so it must have a lower impact.

The first part of this statement is true, but in fact, paper production deals a double blow when it comes to climate change and environmental impact. First, forests are cut down, removing trees that absorb greenhouse gases and convert it into oxygen (not to mention the other impacts on wildlife and ecosystems in general); in 1999, more than 14 million trees were cut down to produce the 10 billion paper bags consumed in the U.S. alone. Second, manufacturing paper from pulp takes a tremendous amount of energy, and because paper is relatively heavy, it takes a lot of fuel to transport the finished product.

How does this compare with the plastics? Of course, there are impacts associated with the extraction of petroleum (just look at the Gulf), but it turns out that the actual production of plastic bags releases about 92% fewer emissions into the atmosphere than paper bag production, and requires about Plastic bags also weigh significantly less than paper, requiring less fuel to get them from point A to point B.

What About Waste


Myth #2: Paper breaks down in the landfill faster than plastic, so it must be the better choice.

Image by greenismyfavoritecolor.net

It turns out that under standard landfill conditions, paper does not degrade any faster than plastic. Even newspaper can take years to break down; newspapers excavated from one New York landfill were mostly intact after 50 years, and another in Arizona was still readable after 35 years. Indeed, the largest percentage of solid waste in U.S. landfills comes from paper and paperboard products, about 31%.

On the other hand, the new generation of plastics somewhat complicate this debate. PLA, or corn-based, plastics commonly used in disposable cutlery, packaging, and plastic grocery bags is compostable, but only among the perfect conditions found in a commercial composting facility, NOT in the landfill where  most plastic ends up, or even in the backyard compost pile.

Biodegradable plastics, like ENSO’s products, however, do break down in the anaerobic landfill environment in a short amount of time (an average of five years), leaving behind only methane, carbon dioxide, and biomass. The use of an additive in standard plastic production also makes it a cost-effective solution. In terms of the plastic waste problem, the biodegradables currently hold the most promise.

Next week, in Part II, we’ll take a look at the aspects of pollution and recycling, and see how the contenders hold up.