Biodegradation?

A 17-year investigation on the archaeology of landfills was published by Dr William L Rathje in the National Geographic magazine on May 1991. Some of the astounding findings was that foodstuffs buried 18 years before did NOT decompose significantly in landfill. The lettuce, corn, hot dog and bread roll looked as if they were just mummified, and didn't break down into simpler or smaller substances. Newspapers which were 11 years old looked as good and completely readable as though they were just kept in the attic.

So if manufacturers claim that you can be guiltless in consuming their products because they are packaged in biodegradable plastic bottles or wrappers, which you then throw away into the garbage bin and ultimately ends up in landfill, you can now imagine what that bioplastic junk would look like in the next couple of decades or so.

Remember that bioplastics are expected to degrade only in the conditions set up in industrial composters, not in home composters nor in landfill sites. So unless there is a system for collecting back these used bioplastic packaging you can consider them as destined for the landfill.

This picture might be changing in the future, as some councils are now starting to use UR-3R waste management facilities (that stands for Urban Resource- Reduction, Recovery, Recycling) such as the one run by Global Renewables at Eastern Creek. UNSW subscribes to the UR-3R service. Under this system, recyclable paper, metal and plastic are mechanically separated; compostable materials are refined into organic growth media (it is not clear whether this system can handle bioplastics); and the rest used as a renewable energy source.