Crusade against plastic part III the alternatives: plastic

When it comes to the environment, not all plastics are created equally. The passionate war being waged against plastics in today's ultra sensitive and less than logical world makes an incredible assumption that plastic manufacturers do not care about the planet we must live on, and only want to increase their profits. You may have deduced from the previous articles in this series that I do not hold to this particular theory. In fact I would suggest that based on the possible dollars to be made combined with the environmental impact it is the manufacturers and pushers of plastic alternatives such as paper and reusable shopping bags who stand to make the most money at greatest expense to the environment. There is a reason why big chains want you to BUY their reusable bags. 

Contrary to alternative material manufacturers, those who make plastic have been honest about the impacts of their product on the planet. Really, there is not much choice - but even so the best way to address the problems created by plastic bags is for that problem to be addressed by the people who have experience in making those plastic bags. They already have the infrastructure needed to make alternatives to traditional plastic shopping bags, which means that unlike alternative manufacturers the usual manufacturers do not have to incur the extra environmental costs to set up shop - and don't believe for a second that those costs do not outweigh by far the supposed environmental gains of in place manufacturing for the usual plastic shopping bags.

There are many plastic bag manufacturers who have leveraged their existing infrastructure as well as their technical expertise in manufacturing plastics to create the only real environmental alternative to plastic shopping bags - and those are plastic shopping bags. 

How can that be? Well, there are many ways to manufacture a plastic bag as well as many different combinations of materials which are collectively known as "plastic". Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge within the environmental movement has caused many people to see all plastic under the same umbrella, and that includes all plastic shopping bags.

The reality is that plastic shopping bags have many different compositions. In fact there are many different types of plastic - styrofoam, polypropylene, polyethelyne terephthalate (PET), high density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride, low density polyethylene (LDPE) are the main types with a slew of others thrown in. Each has different properties and different environemental impacts.

The most ecofriendly plastics include the polyethylenes and the polypropolynes. Plastic bag manufacturers have turned to these materials over the last decade in order to reduce environmental footprint (this is one of the reasons why most retailers have started to charge customers for bags - these plastic shopping bags are significantly higher cost to manufacture than the old style shopping bags). Both have also been shown to have no toxic ramifications for living beings. 

However, these materials are not the best environmental option when it comes to shopping bag alternatives. That title goes to the degradable plastic bag. In the ring with all other choices (including paper and cloth which we covered in the previous articles) the degradable plastic bag is by far the environmental champion.

Degradable bags are actually all around us, approved by government funded science, already. If you have a dog, you have seen them in many different spaces. Pet stores and public parks, degradable bags are what you use if you are conscientious about your pet's public bathroom habits. These bags are designed to break down in natural conditions through the inclusion of an enzyme that reacts over time and/or with the addition of sunlight as well as through the action of Earth's microbes. 

There has been much argument about whether degradable plastic bags are harmful to the environment. While much of the argument is based on lies (such as purporting that there are metals added to the plastic), many of those lies have been debunked through strenuous scientific study - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141391011000607?via%3Dihub . 

The response to this myth debunking by some is that degradable bags are still not perfect for the environment. This is true, but it is no more or less true than saying humans are not perfect for the environment. The point of these articles has always been not that there is a perfect plastic, but that plastic still remains the best option when it comes to the environment. 

And degradable plastics are the best packaging option whether it is for the environment or for our own health. Those who demand a crusade have found a new term to wield, "micro plastics". However the microplastic argument is no more than farce. https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-oceans-pollution-microplastics-evidence-harm-recycling-dumping-waste-a8275416.html

Another controversy which comes from ignorance surrounding degradable plastics is that they do not compost. Again, this is the result of people being confused about their terms. Degradable plastics are not the same as compostable plastics, although there are now plastics which can be composted in your backyard and compostable plastic bags which have been specifically designed to hold backyard compost and join that material in the decay and renew process. So saying that a degradable bag does not compost is not really a knowck against the honesty of the concept of degradable bags - they were never meant to compost just naturally break down in the same way a rock does. In fact, these degradable bags will break down to many of the same basic components as rocks do, but in less time. 

The takeaway from the three parts of this series is not that plastic is great for the environment - it is that when it comes to materials we use as humans, plastic is one of the best alternatives and in fact all other options will do more overall harm to our environment in the long term. Glass, cardboard, paper, cloth, wooden box - plastic is not only the most convenient and least expensive of our packaging options it is also the most environmentally sound overall, and its long term impact is being reduced year by year.