AKA trash vortexes, these accumulation zones for human material waste obviously affects marine life in many frightening ways.... If you think it's easy to 'look the other way' while marine life suffers deformity and death....consider the way plastics break down into toxin absorbing 'nurdles'. These highly toxic man-made krill like particles are ingested by feeders from top to bottom -infecting the entire food chain from sand worms to sharks and YOU.

We must consciously begin to reduce our output and impact. How much food do you buy comes with plastic packaging? Do you use plastic bags? Shipping containers fall off ships regularly all around the world...do you buy local or imported goods? How can we get companies to change the packaging materials they use? Seek alternatives and tell your friends....

"In Australia around 1 million tonnes of plastic materials are produced each year and a further 587,000 tonnes are imported. Packaging is the largest market for plastics, accounting for over a third of the consumption of raw plastic materials – Australians use 6 billion plastic bags every year!

Plastic packaging provides excellent protection for the product, it is cheap to manufacture and seems to last forever. Lasting forever, however, is proving to be a major environmental problem. Another problem is that traditional plastics are manufactured from non-renewable resources – oil, coal and natural gas." (Source: NOVA Science in the News. Making Packaging Greener: Biodegradable Plastics. Published by the Australian Academy of Science)

- S. Innes

Sunday, September 7, 2008

HEALTH vs $$$$$ - Biodegradable Plastics

"The reason traditional plastics are not biodegradable is because their long polymer molecules are too large and too tightly bonded together to be broken apart and assimilated by decomposer organisms. However, plastics based on natural plant polymers derived from wheat or corn starch have molecules that are readily attacked and broken down by microbes."

Plastics can be produced with starch and even bacteria...unfortunately these alternatives (PLA & PHA) are "significantly more expensive to produce and, as yet, [are] not having any success in replacing the widespread use of traditional petrochemical plastics."

"Indeed, biodegradable plastic products currently on the market are from 2 to 10 times more expensive than traditional plastics. But environmentalists argue that the cheaper price of traditional plastics does not reflect their true cost when their full impact is considered. For example, when we buy a plastic bag we don’t pay for its collection and waste disposal after we use it. If we added up these sorts of associated costs, traditional plastics would cost more and biodegradable plastics might be more competitive."

(Sources: Australian Academy of Science: Making packaging greener – biodegradable plastics)

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