BIOPLASTICS AREN'T WHAT THEY'RE MEANT TO BE
GUARDIAN, UK The worldwide effort by supermarkets and industry to replace conventional oil-based plastic with eco-friendly bioplastics made from plants is causing environmental problems and consumer confusion, according to a Guardian study. The substitutes can increase emissions of greenhouse gases on landfill sites, some need high temperatures to decompose and others cannot be recycled in
Many of the bioplastics are also contributing to the global food crisis by taking over large areas of land previously used to grow crops for human consumption.
The market for bioplastics, which are made from maize, sugarcane, wheat and other crops, is growing by 20-30% a year.
The industry, which uses words such as "sustainable", "biodegradeable", "compostable" and "recyclable" to describe its products, says bioplastics make carbon savings of 30-80% compared with conventional oil-based plastics and can extend the shelf-life of food.
Concern centers on corn-based packaging made with polylactic acid. Made from GM crops, it looks identical to conventional polyethylene terephthalate plastic and is produced by
Pla is used by some of the biggest supermarkets and food companies, including Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Del Monte. It is used by Marks & Spencer to package organic foods, salads, snacks, desserts, and fruit and vegetables. . .
While Pla is said to offer more disposal options, the Guardian has found that it will barely break down on landfill sites, and can only be composted in the handful of anaerobic digesters which exist in
Anson, one of
1 Comments:
I sent this to the editor of the Guardian article, I doubt they will print it as I think they would prefer to keep their biased stance.
Dear Editor,
I would like to reply to your article ‘Sustainable’ bio-plastic can damage the environment
As a shareholder of Stanelco PLC since 2003 I have continuously researched the subject of Bioplastics every week for several years, not only the Bioplastics produced by Stanelco PLC’s subsidiary Biotec GmbH, but others such as PLA from Natureworks, PHB (Mirrel) from Metabolix, and those from Plantic, Novamont, and many other smaller manufacturers.
I find your article worrying in that it misses or confuses some big points:
1) It’s very biased and narrow, and thus does not give the reader the real world benefits of Bioplastics to balance the article.
2) The big food crop problems you list are nothing to do with Bioplastics, they are caused by Ethanol and other Bio-FUEL production, not Bioplastics
3) Point 2 is proven by the fact total Bioplastics capacity(not production) are only at 500,000 tonnes P.A, with production of 200,000 tonnes and growing by 20% per annum, no way is that affecting food crops of many millions of tonnes. Global Wheat production alone is 524m tonnes per annum, corn is 766m tonnes per annum.
4) It takes no account of Potato starch(Stanelco’s primary source of raw material), there has been no growth in this industry outside of China, in other areas it has dropped due to wastage via over-production.
5) You have no Life Cycle Analysis(LCA) on Bioplastics versus petro-plastics, where Bioplastics win by miles.
6) Some Bioplastics are certified CO2 NEUTRAL
7) Stanelco/Biotec are working out the LCA for Bioplast, it will be carbon neutral or carbon negative now, or they will make it so.
8) What recyclers will or will not take is irrelevant, because UK Composting is already available in many cities, and it IS on the cards for everywhere. Compostable Bioplastics are and will be taken by the composting collectors, the facilities are high temperature industrial types where PLA will break down and compost just as Natureworks say it will.
The UK National Non-Food Crops Centre have a lot of useful information, and can answer any questions on the subject of Bioplastics alledgedly affecting food crops.
http://www.nnfcc.co.uk/metadot/index.pl
Also for other reasons for lower food crops look at global warming, Bioplastics do not cause global warming if disposed of correctly, oil based plastics contribute to global warming due to their higher levels of CO2 created in production, it doesn’t matter how they are disposed of as the CO2 has already been produced by then.
World’s most important crops hit by global warming effects
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/worlds-most-important-crops-hit-by-global-warming-effects-440850.html
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3423734.ece
CO2/GHG - Bioplastic versus Petro-Plastic(see slides 20, 26, 30)
http://www.stanelco.devisland.net/paternostre.pdf
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/2/1/014002/erl7_1_014002.html
Bio-FUELS is the problem not Bioplastics http://www.aib.subdivisions.co.uk/?p=851
http://www.commoditywatch.in/index.php?action=show_full_story&content_id=355
European Bioplastics counter-attacks on recyclability
http://www.packagingnews.co.uk/RSS/News/805148/European-Bioplastics-counter-attacks-recyclability/
And this is the way the UK is switching to composting:
Northamptonshire council backs £129 million PFI request
The draft OBC document states that: “The technology chosen for the reference project was biological mechanical treatment with advanced thermal treatment of resulting refuse-derived fuel and in-vessel composting of biodegradable material.
http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=9931
You can’t have it both ways, you either use Bioplastics and reduce CO2 thus gradually reversing the drop in crop production, or you use petro-plastics and increase CO2 and reduce food crop production further via global warming.
Buyers of Bioplastics are aware of the issues of PLA, Stanelco are not selling PLA they are selling potato starch based Bioplastics that do compost at home, or blends of potato starch and PLA, utilising their own(Partner Sphere’s) industrial potato crop, which has always been an industrial potato crop grown only for the starch, it was never there as a food crop for at least the last 10 years whilst Avebe owned the starch factory prior to Sphere buying it.
Kind regards,
Paul Masterson
Owner of the Independent Stanelco Shareholders Website and Forum
http://www.stanelco.devisland.net
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