There is a lot of concern about the growing plastic pollution problem, and rightly so.  Did you know?

* Plastic bottles take hundred or thousands of years to begin biodegrading
* 150 billion plastic beverage bottles are produced each year
* 70-80% of plastic bottles are not recycled
* 100 billion plastic bottles end up in landfills, roadsides, streams or oceans
* The average American consumes 167 bottles of water a year
* Bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the United States
* A majority of containers today are made from plastic

It seems that a lot of interest is being placed on bottled water, but take a look at the shelves where you shop; almost everything is packaged in plastic.  Bottled water has become an easy target; many of us think that because our tap water is safe, it must be safe everywhere else.  I wish that were true, most places in the world don’t have safe drinking water.  We should be focusing on the pollution caused by all plastics and insist that plastics be designed to be sustainable.  Sustainable plastics regardless of what it is made from, petroleum or plants should be biodegradable and designed to meet“Cradle to Cradle,” design criteria.  A cradle to cradle product is made from something, used, reused, recycled and when its useful life is over, it returns to the earth as a harmless substance.

The problem is that we consumers are confused we don’t understand what is biodegradable, what is compostable, what is the carbon foot print, etc?  Market experts know we’re confused and have designed their campaigns to keep us that way.  Here’s an example, Polylactic acid or polylactide (PLA)is a plastic made primarily from corn but can be made from other plants, is marketed as biodegradable and compostable.  Making plastics from corn may sound like the perfect utopian answer for solving all our plastic pollution problems, but everything in PLA land isn’t what it seems to be.  PLA made from corn increases use of pesticides, is made from genetically altered corn, reduces food crops, raises food prices, and does not biodegrade any quicker than standard plastic in a landfill.  A huge problem with PLA is that it isn’t easily recycled and for proper disposal, it must be processed in a commercial composting site.  There aren’t many commercial composting sites here in the U.S. and some that do exist won’t accept PLA that is made from genetically altered corn. The bottom line is that PLA can’t be composted in your backyard compost pile and with the limited number of commercial sites here in the U.S., most PLA will end up in the garbage dump where it will languish for thousands of years, right along with other plastics.

Beware spin masters, consumers are getting smarter and we want products that don’t harm us or our future generations.

Max

http://www.ensobottles.com

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Gyres accumulate trash, where with help from the sun, it is turned into a plastic particle soup. Think of it as a bowl of soup the size of Texas.

Most of the plastics we use float. Floating on the surface they are bombarded by the suns rays, eventually breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. Even as small pieces they continue to float and are often mistaken as food by small fish and other sea creatures. Small fish are part of the food chain they are eaten by large fish and many of those are eaten by humans. Plastic can be passed on to us when we eat fish that have made plastic part of their diet.

An interesting fact about plastics is that not all of them float. For example, PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) the plastic used for water and soft drink bottles doesn’t float. It will float if air is trapped in the bottle, but like other plastics floating on the surface, it will be broken down by the sun. Once the PET container no longer holds air it will sink to the bottom. The caps on most plastic bottles aren’t made of PET plastic they don’t sink. Plastic caps will break down into smaller pieces and become part of the goo building up in our ocean gyres.

It’s important that we find a way to clean up our oceans and keep plastic from entering our waters. We need to develop plastics that biodegrade in our oceans and streams. We need plastics that should they get in our oceans, sink to the bottom, and not leave harmful by products.

by

Max

ENSO Bottles

www.ensobottles.com

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