Max de TrenseJun 22nd, 2009 - 12:17:51

The amount of plastic floating in the Pacific is truly appalling, but the answer to avoidibg plastic waste there and just about everywhere else is to switch to oxo-biodegradable plastic.

'Oxo-bio' plastic will degrade completely within a short timespan and it will do so on land or in water without leaving any messy fragments or emitting any methane, unlike some other forms of degradable plastic.

Above all, you can 'tell' it when to degrade. You program it with a pre-set lifespan during manufacture, so it will self-destruct when its time is up - from as little as six months onwards, if this is necessary.

It is currently the only form of plastic you can manufacture to a pre-determined lifespan and it is becoming particularly popular in developing countries with a big plastic waste problem and threats of severe environmental pollution, both on land and in their rivers and water courses.

Professor Gerald Scott, the leading European authority on plastics technology, has gone on record as saying that if the Great Pacific Garbage Patch had been composed of oxo-biodegradable plastic in its initial stages, most of it would by now have degraded and there would be no patch.

Could we not all of us think 'oxo-bio' rather than using ordinary plastic
bags or packaging?

Report this comment