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.

The Green Dot

The Green Dot (Der Grüne Punkt) is the license symbol of a European network of industry-funded systems for recycling the packaging materials of consumer goods. It was originally introduced in 1991 by Duales System Deutschland (DSD) following the introduction of the 1991 German Ordinance on the Avoidance and Recovery of Packaging Waste (aka Packaging Ordinance, Verpackungsverordnung) which became the basis for the 1994 European Union Packaging Directive.

Under these waste recovery schemes manufacturers are made responsible for the recycling or disposal of any packaging in which their products are sold. Instead of collecting recyclable packaging themselves, they can join the Green Dot scheme and pay the license fees for using the Green Dot logo on their packaging labels.

As the Green Dot license fees are based on the weight and type of packaging materials used as well as the volumes of packaged products manufactured, the scheme encourages manufacturers to cut down on their use of packaging in order to minimize the cost of license fees which are passed on to consumers, making their merchandise costlier.

The Green Dot logo communicates to consumers that the manufacturer contributes to the cost of recovery and recycling of the used packaging. The logo also informs consumers to place the usedpackages in separate yellow bags or yellow wheelie bins for collection by DSD-operated waste collection vehicles and sorted and recycled in DSD facilities. If any packaging is found in the yellow bags without the Green Dot logo, the manufacturers are fined, as they have not effectively complied with the law on recovering their used packaging.

The successful German Green Dot scheme has now been replicated in 23 other European countries, as part of the European Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62/EC. This binds all manufacturers worldwide that sell products in the 27 member states of the European Community to recover their own packaging. The Green Dot is now used by more than 130,000 companies encompassing 460 billion packages.

See here a series of recycling videos produced by the DSD.

Intolerable Beauty of Packaging Waste

Chris Jordan is best known for his unsettling, large scale portraits on mass consumerism in the USA, which typically show the consequences which will arise from human habits. His works on Intolerable Beauty and Running the Numbers are graphical depictions of statistics from American consumer society.

He pictured shocking stats at TED.com.




National Geographic's Human Footprint channel calculated that in one lifetime, the average UK consumer uses up 49,717 cans of soda.

Packaging Recycling Videos

Here are some videoclips from "Giving Packaging a New Life", produced in 2001 by Duales System Deutschland, http://www.gruener-punkt.de/, otherwise known as the Green Dot.




More videoclips from the same production:

Recycling paper
Recycling tinplate
Recycling aluminium
Recycling glass
Recycling plastics
Recycling tetrapaks

Container Deposit Legislation

Only the state of South Australia practices Container Deposit Legislation, refunding to the value of 10c per can or bottle. This practice started in 1977 to reduce littering as legislated by the Beverage Container Act of SA.

A nationwide container deposit scheme has been proposed in the Senate of the Federal Parliament. All attempts in other states have been unsuccessful so far (Victoria tried it twice but rescinded). (Note: plain milk and wine in glass containers are outside the scope of the South Australian CDL, and fruit juices and flavoured milks in 1L or bigger containers).

Packaging Covenant

Australia's National Packaging Covenant is a voluntary initiative to reduce the environmental effects of used packaging on the environment. Industry, government and community groups sign and commit to improved environmental packaging outcomes. Signing is voluntary, yet brand owners who do not sign may face state government regulations to ensue that signatories are not disadvantaged. The covenant has over 640 signatories.

The NPC has come up with an Environmental Code of Practice for Packaging, which includes a questionnaire for design. The code is also available on Schedule 5 of the NPC.