Every little bit helps.....

[woodbloke]

I meant to post this the other day but didn't get around tuit. I was doing a bit of dinner for SWIMBO and got a bag of veggie out of the freezer (from Tesco) and happened to spot on the bag that it was made from 'biodegradable plastic' and would degrade in the ground in about 4 years instead of the usual 100 years or so, which I thought had to be pretty good. This is the first time I've spotted a bag like this and I wonder though, how long its going to be before all, or most plastic bags are made from biodegradable material? Is this just a one off or are we going to see a whole lot more biodegradable plastics in the future? - Rob

 

[PowerTool]

I think we will see a whole lot more - there is already a campaign going to reduce the number of plastic carrier bags we use.(All part of our increasing awareness of finite resource,and environmental concerns)
Oddly enough,I remember biodegradeable carrier bags being out about 25 years ago,but the idea never seemed to catch on.

Andrew

 

[RogerS]

You'd be surprised at the amount of packaging that can be recycled. For example, M&S have this on a lot of their food packaging. Many plastic bottles can be recycled.

 

[woodbloke]

Roger Sinden wrote:

packaging that can be recycled

Hi Roger -we recycle most of our plastic bottles (some can't I think, be recycled at present eg. 'pet' bottles for carbonated drinks) where the plastic is reprocessed for re-use into more plastic products....I only mention this veggie bag as its the first time that I've seen a plastic product which is designed not to be recycled but to biodegrade instead - Rob

 

[Scrit]

I remember Waterstones and others doing biodegradeable bags a number of years back, then it all went quiet.

My understanding is that both polyethylene and PETG bottles can be cleaned and reground for recycling, although most recycled plastics are still made from what is referred to as "virgin waste", i.e. non-consumer waste which has not been contaminated with foodstuffs, etc. Apparently sugar and starch contaminations can be a major headache when repressing polyethylene, for example. This means that a some post-consumer waste plastics end up being recycled as geotechnical fills which are used for building roadway embankments, filling in behind retaining walls and as backfill above buried pipelines, etc.

To me the most annoying aspect of recycling is that the vast majority of post-consumer or contaminated plastics for recycling end up in 1 tonne compressed bales which are shipped to China or the Far East for hand sorting before reprocessing. Maybe it's me, but that doesn't seem environmentally acceptable, either.

Scrit

 

[Paul Chapman]

All this recycling seems a bit haphazard at the moment. I'm always taking stuff down to our local dump. Some days the staff there are red hot and pounce on you if you try to throw stuff in the wrong skip - but on other days they don't seem to bother and say "No, don't worry, just shove it in there mate" :shock: But they all seem to have a chart on a pole showing that they are achieving 99.999% of their recycling targets :? :?

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[DomValente]

Coincidence or what, went to a Coop in reading last week and their bags will start degrading within 18 months and the cycle will complete within three years.

 

[promhandicam]

Coincidence or what, went to a Coop in reading last week and their bags will start degrading within 18 months and the cycle will complete within three years.

Is that the carrier bags or the packaging? If it is the packaging that is a bit alarming as we often have stuff lurking in our freezer that has been there for years :roll: I can see it now, one day I'll go to get a choc ice and there will be frozen peas / sweetcorn / chips etc etc. all over the place and some odd scraps of plastic in the bottom :lol:

Steve

 

[Les Mahon]

there is already a campaign going to reduce the number of plastic carrier bags we use

Here in Ireland they charge 15c for each plastic bag you get in the shop.
It seems to have had a pretty good impact as there are now not nearly as many littering the hedges - most people bring re-usable bags when going to do the shoping. Interestingly though the incidence of shoplifting went through the roof when the scheme was first implemented!

Les