Dissecting biodegradable plastic standards
Time:
Nov 14,2022
The PAS 9017 standard covers polyolefins, a class of thermoplastics that includes polyethylene and polypropylene, which constitute half of all plastic pollution in the environment.
Polyolefins are widely used in the manufacture of shipping bags, fruit and vegetable packaging and beverage bottles.
"Meeting the global plastic waste challenge will require imagination and innovation," said Scott Steedman, director of BSI standards. A consensus among all stakeholders on how to measure the biodegradability of polyolefins will accelerate technology validation; publicly available, objective and independent standards will enable industry to develop and deliver real solutions.
The British Standards Institute also explained that the standard only applies to land-based plastic pollution, testing plastics to prove that they can be broken down into harmless waxes in an open land environment. The total duration of the test period is 730 days, and at the end of the test period, 90 percent or more of the organic carbon in the wax must be converted to carbon dioxide. Researchers found that many of the biodegradable plastic bags that have passed the test and met the standards do not effectively degrade in the marine environment, almost still in its original state.
Therefore, we still can not blindly believe in biodegradable label, first of all, to meet the standards of biodegradable plastic takes two years to degrade, most of the conversion to carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect; second, if it is not degraded before entering the water system, it is very likely that it and millions of other plastics like poisoning our oceans, and eventually backfire on humans.
