permaculture

[Ben Martin Horst <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com>]

I've seen a lot of plastics -- synthesized usually from corn but sometimes
from potatoes -- that are labeled as "compostable." Usually this requires an
industrial composting process, utilizing temperatures significantly higher
than are usually achieved in a backyard compost pile. They'd probably still
break down even at low temperatures, but it could be a matter of years, or
even decades, but as far as I've been able to tell, it is a true
biodegradation, not just breaking down into tiny bits. There are some other
products on the market that will break down relatively ("relatively" being
the key word) quickly in a normal compost pile ... BioBag is a company that
makes these.

But in any case, lbsaltzman's point is the important and fundamental one.
The amount of fossil-fuel derived energy required to grow the feedstock and
manufacture the things has got to override any other positive attributes.
BioBag claims that they don't use any GMO corn in their products, but vast
tracts of monocropped corn can't be considered sustainable by any reasonable
definition, whether GMO or not, or even whether organic or not.
Additionally, I'd be willing to bet that a significant proportion of the
compostable trash bags out there are going into landfills, where they're not
going to break down anyway.

I tend to be fairly pessimistic about environmental trends among the general
public, but I honestly think that reducing bag use is one area where US
Americans are making huge strides. Yes, there is still waaaaaaay too much
plastic (and paper) being produced for the exclusive purpose of wrapping our
refuse to go linger in a landfill for all eternity ... I don't dispute that.
But it's pretty impressive how many people I see taking their tote bags and
sturdy reusable grocery bags with them shopping these days, and it's not
just liberal greenies either. No, it's probably not enough to have any major
or even minor environmental impact, at least from a global perspective, but
even as short a time as five years ago I wouldn't have guessed this would be
a direction the American public was trending.

-Ben

On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Louis G. Laframboise <esiobmarfal@gmail.com
> wrote:

> Has anyone had success or experiences composting biodegradeable plastic
> bags? At one point, I remember hearing that the bags didn't actually
> decompose, but just broke down into smaller pieces. Is this what happens
> with the non-biodegradeable plastic only?
>
> It seems foreign to me to put plastic bags in the compost, and to think
> that
> they will eventually become soil. I have a hard time trusting this idea but
> suppose it involves a mental shift and new understandings--such as taking
> William McDonough and Michael Braungart's idea of "industrial nutrients"
> (from their book Cradle To Cradle) seriously. Even though plastic has been
> traditionally made mostly from oil and other toxics, could it be that these
> biodegradeable plastics are actually benign and one example of industrial
> nutrients which could be cycled in a non-toxic life-death-rebirth loop? Or
> is it mostly greenwash?
>
> To confuse matters, there must be many different types of plastic bags and
> other such products which biodegrade. I once remember seeing the word
> Even
> though the applications and percentage of plastic bags which are
> biodegradeable are relatively small, given such statistics as the 6:1 ratio
> of plastics to plankton in the Pacific or other gyres and the other
> destructive associationns that plastic has for the planet, getting every
> shred of organics (now including the biodegradeable plastics) composted
> back
> to earth is worthwhile. Asuming that it is natural and biodegradeable, how
> quickly could we believe and start treating these new pastics as easily and
> mindlessly as any other kitchen or landscape scraps by throwing them into
> our composts or using them as mulch.
>
> I am asking myself this in the realisation that I will still be using
> plastic into the foreseeable future, even though we are briskly proceeding
> along the path of energy decent and increasing resource constraints, and
> that this is possibly only a stepping stone in the transition to a less or
> no bag culture. But it also helps to perceive the change in mind which will
> be required to make the jump to a more permanent culture which will take
> ideas from both the old and new worlds. Natural plastics?
>
> Any clarification on this, or the sharing of experiences would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> Louis
> Ottawa, Canada
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