With a growing awareness of our single use plastic issues, plastic bags have recently come under fire, and rightly so really. They’re typically used once, maybe twice and then sent on their way to landfill. Most often they are used to collect the rubbish that gets sent to landfill – it’s super common for people to keep their plastic shopping bags to line their rubbish bins.
In the wake of this, a lot of companies have started selling biodegradable and compostable plastic bags, which sounds like a perfect solution to a shitty problem, right? Wrong, mostly. Unfortunately, there are very few standards and guidelines around the whole biodegradable/compostable issue for plastic bags.
Biodegradable doesn’t mean a lot – most things will eventually biodegrade given enough time. From what I’ve learned, biodegradable simply means that it will one day, eventually break down. Unfortunately what it’s going to break down into isn’t likely to be organic matter, certainly not anything that you’d want to be sprinkling over your veggie patch. If you’ve ever wrapped something in an old shopping bag and put it in storage only to take it out 10 years later and have the plastic bag fall apart – that’s biodegradable. Well done, chances are you’ve now made microplastic!
Compostable bags have a bit more going for them. The biggest issue here is that generally we don’t have very good access to the commercial composting facilities that you need to send these to in order for them to be processed properly. Because people can’t yet be trusted to put the right items into the right bins, there’s some reluctance from facilities to accept bags because they may not actually be compostable. Then their facility is contaminated with that “biodegradable” stuff mentioned above.
Neither of the above is likely to actually break down and compost in landfill, because of the lack of required heat and exposure to air. The same goes for if they end up in the ocean or waterways. Even in a commercial composting facility it can take months for compostable plastic to fully degrade.
We have a long way to go in this area of waste reduction and it’s going to involve a lot of work to clarify and educate around what the different terms are, and then also manage the end of life stage of the product to make sure it’s going to an appropriate facility for the item to return to a more natural form.
I read an interesting article on stuff.co.nz that gave this useful summary and an accompanying verdict from Foodstuffs:
Degradable: A standard plastic with a chemical added that disintegrates the bag into tiny pieces of plastic
Foodstuff’s verdict: Environmentally damaging as tiny pieces of plastic will remain in environment for a very long time and will be impossible to clean up
Biodegradable: Unregulated and not guaranteed to break down or do so without any residue
Foodstuff’s verdict: Potentially environmentally damaging
Compostable: There are two types, home compostable and commercially compostable. The majority of rigid bio-plastics are only compostable in a municipal composting environment, where they require moisture and temperatures of 70 deg C minimum to break down.
Foodstuffs verdict: If all bio-plastics were guaranteed to be correctly disposed of to appropriate composting environments, this would be arguably better than standard single use plastics.
However, they are not, and there are major flaws in the end of life disposal of these items meaning only a tiny percentage would ever be composted. The reality is the majority will go to landfill where they are unlikely to break down.
Source: Foodstuffs
Instead, as always, I advocate for reducing or eliminating the need for single use plastic. Here are simple ways that we reduce our need for single use plastic bags at home.
FAQ screen grab from Auckland Council’s website
Check with your local council, but at Auckland Council, it’s not necessary for your rubbish to go into a bag before putting it in the bin.
We are nearly out of bin liners in my house and will be switching to either a reusable bag, or skip lining our bins all together and just add our waste straight to the kerbside bin. I’ve spotted these bin liners and I’m keen to try them out. They have great reviews at EcoWarehouse! However, I’ll be supporting local and buying mine from the market on the weekend.
Everyone knows about taking their reusable grocery bags with them when they go to the store, but if like me you don’t really like keeping a stash in the car, I recommend one that folds into a little pouch that can be thrown in the bottom of your handbag or stashed in your glovebox. I love ones like this that have the pouch attached so it can’t be lost. If you happen to forget a bag and you’re only getting a few things, try carrying them! Or if you’re doing a larger shop, just load everything into your car and then transfer into bags at home to get them into the house.
Compostable coffee cups and lids pose all the problems listed above, so make the switch to a reusable mug. With a great variety of options, there’s bound to be one that you love and will happily take along to your local cafe!
There’s really no need for plastic wrapped food when we have such a great variety of bulk stores and packaging free stores in Auckland. Yes, it takes a little more effort and planning but the effort is well worth it! GoodFor Store stocks these handy pouches with reusable cutlery. Though I have to admit, to save buying things (which is counter intuitive in the reduction of waste), why not just take your own cutlery from home and wrap it in a napkin? Check out this bamboo spork by www.inmykitchen.kiwi
Instead of covering your food with glad wrap, put it into an airtight container. We also use Honey Wraps at home which are super handy, but we’ve found for ages that it’s so easy to simply put things that you used to wrap in plastic into a container.
Most takeaway places are happy for you to take your own containers along. So even if they offer compostable plastic containers, you’d be better off avoiding this and using your own. I keep an old, clean Thai takeaway container at work to use for take out lunches when I can.
Buy a reusable drink bottle – something that you like and will remember to take with you for years to come. Stainless steel is a great option, but the important thing is that it’s leak proof and you remember to take it with you.
There are even solutions available for pet waste. Check out this article from Rubbish Free NZ where they recommend the Enso Pet Waste Composting Kit and BioDog bags.
I hope this has been a helpful read! This is a huge topic and I’ve barely even scratched the surface of the issues and the information that’s out there. There are undoubtedly some great products, but until we have better standards and testing, along with accurate disposal, we could still be doing more harm than good by choosing biodegradable and compostable plastics.
What are your single use plastic items that you’re struggling to find replacements for, or what favourite replacements have you found already?
