Be aware of fake rumors of plastic and bioplastic | Biodegradation Myths
Every time we hear the story of banning plastic. Ban is the only solution to get rid of the environmental problem.
If we use another packaging material, will it not get any issues? We need to think about where we are lacking.
But, we also have to accept that plastic causes severe damage to nature; the world has produced over nine billion tons of plastic since the 1950s. One hundred sixty-five million tons of it have trashed our ocean, with almost 9 million more tons entering the oceans each year. Since only about 9 percent of plastic gets recycled, much of the rest pollutes the environment or sits in landfills, where it can take up to 500 years to decompose while leaching toxic chemicals into the ground.
In case if plastic is never invented – we are probably using metal, glass, and paper. All these packaging material comes from natural resources, and the carbon footprint is involved. So, all the natural resources are almost consumed to date if plastic was not invented. Then, we can never be in the circular economy zone because the consumption of natural resources is in high demand.
Facts checks about the Fake rumors of plastic, bio-plastic, and sustainability
Yes, this is all right, but why do we excite the bioplastic? Are we managing the heading of the plastic with a sustainable or bioplastic name?
The lacking is in recyclability, not in using plastic. Same as bioplastic will also dump in the ocean, then what will our regulation or government will do.
There are three parallel theories right now to overcome the issue of plastic.
- Ban on plastic
- Sustainability in the usage of plastic
- Biodegradable plastic
1. Ban on plastic: Normal people think plastic is a pollution problem; yes, plastic is one factor of pollution. But it can be overcome with the correct usage of recyclability and dumping regulations. But nobody cares and thinks in that way. Then, a big name came into the market and declared the usage of sustainable packaging material. But we people never ask about the carbon footprint and recycling of packaging material.
2. Sustainability of plastic: I will call as lower engineering, which is named as the sustainability of plastic. Let me take an example. In case if a brand has a plastic bottle having “x” weight and we need to sustainability operations of a bottle. We do take a trial of N’ no. of different lower wt. And perform their transits testing. And select one of the best result bottles and say that our bottle is sustainable to that particular lower wt. of a bottle.
Another example: – If the paper is having a more carbon footprint comparative to regular plastic. We do consider that plastic is sustainable. So, that is our sustainable theory.
3. Biodegradable plastic: This plastic is complicated, not in the making but understanding it. There is no such exact figure of sustainability in that bioplastic. Another part is that we have an issue with recyclability and collection of plastic, whether standard plastic or bioplastic.
⇒Can bioplastic degrade in the ocean because our practice of dumping will also remain the same for bioplastic?
The answer is no.
- Bioplastic recycling
Bioplastic recycling will be the most challenging part after collection, we have to degrade it, and we cannot mix with virgin material again. As of now, companies are still researching the process of recycling.
⇒Another, Can we segregate the bio-plastic and regular plastic?
A collection guy cannot segregate it just by visual appearance. Also, Can bioplastic degrade anywhere on any soil with fewer resources?
I have given you a question to think about. Kindly comment if you find these answers.
