Degradable vs Biodegradablee
In each year an estimated amount of 36,700 tons of plastic bags alone end up in Australian landfills, not including those that become part of the litter stream. It’s known that they may take as long as 1000 years to break down.
Almost anything will degrade eventually, from a bag to a brick wall. Degradable plastics break down into millions of tiny fragments of plastic. It isn’t as much of a nuisance but it’s still waste, and even then, they only do it if they are exposed to the UV in sunlight or heat. If they are buried in a landfill, they don’t break down significantly. Tips are mountains of disposable plastics.
At becausewecare™ our most resistant sheet bioplastic takes no more than 45 days to break down completely in the right environmental conditions. These bioplastics need moisture, microbes and soil before they start to break down. They won’t degrade until they are in this basic compost environment. Environmental ‘green bags’ sold by retailers are in fact made from polypropylene, a fossil fuel-based plastic that will still eventually end up in land fills.
Paper bags take four times more energy to manufacture than plastic bags, and of course most paper comes from tree pulp, so the impact on forests is enormous. Biodegradable bags are kinder to the environment from the point of production to the point of decomposition.
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