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BioPlastic: Friend or Foe?

9-03-2008corn.jpg

For the last year or so, we've been buying biodegradable dog waste bags for cleaning up our cats' litter box. The ones we buy are biodegradable because they're made out of cornstarch -- they're bioplastic.

How do you feel about bioplastics?

 
 

We were pretty happy with our little bags, but we just read something at EcoGeek that is making us think twice -- 8 Reasons Why Bioplastic is Worse Than Regular Plastic.

All 8 points made complete sense to us -- but now we're in a bit of a bind: We still want to that think buying the compostable bags is better than bringing home plastic bags from the grocery store.

What do you think?

image via belriose; sxc.hu

Tags

Slinks, corn, bioplastic, compstable plastic

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Comments (7)

I use plastic bags that bread comes in, plastic and paper wrappers from different things, and sometimes I get plastic bags from other people who have yet to discover the joys of taking your own bag to the market. It's a little awkward having different sized things and not nearly as nice as a roll of blue dog bags, but it's the most green option I've thought of. Budget friendly, too!

Sometimes being green means NOT buying something.

posted by theambershow on September 3rd 2008 at 5:59am
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I think it really varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. In the case of pet waste bags, we've chosen to use Bio Bags. The company does address some of the concerns in the EcoGeek article - they only use non-GMO corn in manufacturing, and they're very up-front about under exactly what conditions their products will or will not break down and are or are not compostable. It's not perfect, but I don't think it's any worse than regular plastic, and potentially better.

posted by elmcclell on September 3rd 2008 at 6:10am
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I have been researching this as well, but mostly because I have a corn allergy, and I realized I may be unknowingly getting "poisoned" by corn from fruit containers and coffee drinks. But aside from my own allergy issues, I think the fact that it is only compostable in a commercial-grade facility (and those are rare) and isn't always labeled well to avoid being thrown into recycling with normal plastic are big problems too. So I, for one, am not a fan.

posted by kendra s on September 3rd 2008 at 8:09am
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Ahh, pretty soon everything is going to be made from corn!

posted by Lizzykewl on September 3rd 2008 at 9:59am
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I cut and pasted my comments to EcoGeek on this matter below -- he doesn't allow hyperlinks, but you do and I highly recommend looking into both Eco Products and Eco Cycle to find more reliable info on this issue.
*****
While you do make some interesting points, I don't think this issue is cut and dried.

First off, I live in a community with industrial composting, and so many businesses are buying compostable ware (corn, bagasse, cellulose, etc.) and composting it with food waste. This is great and diverting lots of waste from the landfill.

Second, there may be bioplastics out there that are not compostable or that are made from GMO corn, but the primary sales source for compostable ware in our area is Eco Products and the last time I researched what they sold the corn products clearly stated that they were not made from GMO corn and that they were indeed compostable.

Thirdly, I have an Earth Machine composter and I have put in compostable corn cups, bagasse plates, egg cartons, corn straws, and corn forks and although it takes them a while -- in 4 to 6 months they do compost even in my home set-up.

And lastly, our local recycling group EcoCycle which is staffed by some hard core greenies even sells compostable ware for Zero Waste events. Maybe they are pulling the wool over my eyes, but these folks live for the environment, so I have a hard time believing they'd support compostable ware if it was as bad as you claim it to be. Perhaps you could contact a staff member at Eco Cycle and present them with your above ideas. Talk it over and then get back to us with your final analysis.

Thanks for not just believing something is green because that is how it is marketed, at the same time, don't ditch compostables just yet.

posted by Green Me on September 3rd 2008 at 12:00pm
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In general I agree with Green Me, but I have to say whenever I use those bags it seems like a stop gap measure. Frankly, it reminds me of methadone. It may not be as bad as heroin, but the junkies are still addicted.

posted by SFGail on September 3rd 2008 at 12:28pm
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The EcoGeek article is interesting, but I have some issues with it. For one thing, its really 7 reasons, not 8. Reason #5 - It's never made from organic corn - has nothing to do with bioplastic itself, but the choice of where to get the corn. Unless bioplastic from organic corn would be completely different, this is pretty irrelevant.

At least its a start. Nothing is perfect from the beginning. Is bioplastic perfect? No. Should it be supported? Absolutely.

Its going to take time to find all the answers. Should we not support it because its not perfect?

posted by Plaid Ninja on September 4th 2008 at 11:31am
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