Biodegradable Plastic Bags (what!)

November 28, 2009

My mom and I went to do some grocery in a local store here in Sampaloc, Tanay. I noticed that she was carrying a green  linen bag from SM.  I just thought its very practical and ideal to bring your own bag instead of putting your food items in a plastic bag that may probably end up clogging canals and roads sometime soon. After a while, I remembered this somewhat-confusing-and-i-can’t-seem-to-understand  biodegradable plastic bag from SM, which most of you probably have seen already. Its label says “biodegradable”. I’m not sure if I have missed a day in my Science class way back high school or I just can’t really understand how it became such.

 Probably, it contains something like a component that when composted, degrades. But much of the material used is of course plastic. Therefore, the palstic component remains. Some scientists say that plastic degrades. Siempre!! But it takes hundreds of years. By that time, the world will have already sunken. I checked on this site called biodegradableplasticbags.net and claims that “due to a unique new additive available in plastics the biodegrading process can begin within 9 short months. The bags biodegrade into simple materials found in nature, such as water, carbon dioxide and humus”.

The new additive does not require oxygen or moisture for biodegrading process to begin, so the bags naturally biodegrade even in landfill conditions and the bags are still completely recyclable.

Shelf life and reliability are not affected. Biodegradable bags will maintain the benefits of strength, leak resistance, grease resistance, and less storage requirements until they are placed in the environment that causes them to breakdown, i.e. soil and bacteria, the dump. I would definitely recommend taking linen bags whenever you do some shopping or grocery. It’s a small way of helping Mother Nature.

(Picture Courtesy of  www.theweatherstore.wordpress.com) Thank You!