歐洲禁塑女鬥士 再挑戰淨灘

歐洲禁塑女鬥士 再挑戰淨灘 

中國時報 2008.05.09　 黃文正／綜合報導

http://news.chinatimes.com/2007Cti/2007Cti-News/2007Cti-News-Content/0,4521,110504+112008050900540,00.html

去年5月1日，在蕾貝卡．霍斯金（Rebecca Hosking）努力奔走遊說下，她居住的英格蘭濱海小鎮莫柏利（Modbury），成為全歐第一個禁用塑膠袋的城鎮。現年34歲的霍斯金女士說，她並非環保主義者，造成她生命巨大轉變，全是2年前在太平洋上中途島環礁（Midway Atoll）海邊的一場哭泣。  

緣起：信天翁之死

http://www.messageinthewaves.com/xtras.php?clip=areeat.flv&preview=4&start=true 

在接受《華盛頓郵報》訪問時，這位英國廣播公司（BBC）野生動物影片製作人回憶說，2年前她前往位於檀香山西北方2093英里處的中途島海灘，被滿目的死亡景象嚇壞了，成千上萬的死信天翁曝曬在艷陽下，從牠們爆裂的肚子裡，她看到殺死牠們的塑膠品：打火機、原子筆、玩具、刀叉、高夫爾球和牙刷。

霍斯金說，當時她放下相機，走入海灘，試圖搶救一息倖存者，她小心翼翼捧起一隻小信天翁，沒想到牠卻狠狠啄了她的手臂，不久之後，便在她懷中斷氣。

她手臂上小疤痕至今仍在，「我當場崩潰痛哭，因為我知道牠為何如此。」

她說：「那一天，我永遠無法忘記。」

霍斯金曉得自己無能改變中途島，但或許有可能改變位於英格蘭西南部德文郡海濱的家鄉：莫柏利，一個僅有1600人的小鎮。在家鄉海灘上看到數以千計的塑膠袋，決定把塑膠袋趕出鎮上。去年4月，她在一家藝廊召開鎮民大會，邀請鎮上43名商人，其中泰半都是看著她長大者，結果，有37人出席。  

鼓吹：開歐洲先例  

霍斯金在場上放映拍攝的夏威夷海洋污染影片，並向與會人士描述家鄉海邊目前日益嚴重的污染情況。她向眾人提議，莫柏利應禁止使用塑膠袋。她揣想，只要不影響生意，這些有憐憫心的商人不一定會反對。 其實，早在提議前數週，霍斯金便開始行動。她上網蒐尋塑膠袋的替用品，發現一家英國公司有販售一種由玉蜀黍澱粉製造，可完全分解、外觀又與傳統塑膠袋神似的生物環保袋（BioBags）。她悄悄訂購了一些，請熟識的屠夫試用，結果韌性與力度都不錯。 在會議上，霍斯金請這名屠夫現身說法，看到屠夫舉手表示贊成，所有人也都跟進，最後無異議通過決議，去年5月1日，莫柏利成為全歐第一個禁用塑膠袋的城鎮。 當地商人席勒說，這種生物環保袋比傳統塑膠袋便宜，不過，最近生物環保袋賣得愈來愈少，因為大家都逐漸自備購物袋。  

成就：全世界跟進  

經媒體的大幅報導，霍斯金不僅獲英國首相布朗表揚，還獲英國女王伊莉莎白二世接見。目前全英有9個城鎮已跟進禁用塑膠袋，另有120個城鎮打算倣傚。

此外，夏威夷兩個城鎮也即將施行，中國和哥倫比亞官員也曾前往取經，而霍斯金與工作夥伴也在她成立的網站（ http://www.plasticbagfree.com

)回答來自世界各國的求教與詢問。 本週，塑膠袋禁令屆滿週年，莫柏利又將展開新一波的環保運動：大規模淨灘。至於下個目標，霍斯金指向塑膠瓶裝水。對於讚譽紛至，她謙虛地說：「我並非綠色環保鬥士，我們只是做了一件小事，恰好成功了，天啊，它正在改變全世界。」 

Bag Wholesalers we Recommend: 
 
Remember when changing from a plastic bag to an alternative, make sure the alternative does less harm to the environment than a plastic bag would. This is from the bags creation to its disposal. Otherwise it begs the question, what is the point in changing over? 
 
We have credited the wholesalers below as supplying a product to Modbury that has been meticulously sourced. 
 
You may well find cheaper products on the market BUT are they ethical and actually that good for the environment, or do they just say they are? 
 
Please look at our Bag Info page to remind yourself of what you should look for when choosing an alternative bag. 
 
However if you want to make your life easy, the wholesalers below have been vetted and vetted and vetted again by us about the product they supplied before we started to use it in Modbury.

----------------------------------------------------- 
 
The Supplier of the official Modbury Bag 
Bags2Keep 
POBox 55 
Torpoint 
Cornwall 
PL11 3WY 
UK 
Tel : +44 1579 349005 
Mob : +44 7802 386384 
Email: rod.baker@btconnect.com 
website 

For Cornstarch bags, please keep scolling down this page , many thanks.

-----------------------------------------------------

Water based ink printers  
Lorna Wiles Textiles Unit 7 
Restormel Industrial Estate 
Lostwithiel 
Cornwall 
PL22 0HG 
UK 
TeL: +441208 873666 
Contact: Jon & Sumita Sinkins

----------------------------------------------------- 
 
Supplier of the cornstarch bags (England and Wales only) 
Biobag Limited 
Comet Road 
Moss Side Industrial Estate 
Leyland 
Lancashire 
PR26 7PF 
UK 
Tel: +44 1772 641 348 
Fax: +44 1772 621 065 
Email: biobag@btconnect.com 
website 
 
The Scottish supplier of the Biobag cornstarch bags 
Biobags (Scotland) Ltd 
4 St. Ninians 
Monymusk 
Inverurie 
Aberdeenshire 
Scotland 
AB51 7HF 
UK 
Sales contact: Karen Mackenzie 
Phone: +44 1467 651 247 
Fax: +44 1467 651 247 
E-mail: info@biobags.co.uk 
website

----------------------------------------------------- 
 
Supplier of string bags 
Turtle Bags 
1 Hardcastle Villas 
Worcester Road 
Stourport on Severn 
Worcestershire 
DY13 9PA 
UK 
Tel: +44 1299 827092/ +44 1299 827092 
Email:turtle.bags@yahoo.co.uk 
website

----------------------------------------------------- 
 
Supplier of SFC paper bags 
Carrier Bag Shop 
Unit C18, 
Hastingwood Trading Estate 
Harbet Road 
London 
N18 3HU 
UK 
Tel: +44 870-777-7673 
Email: info@carrierbagshop.co.uk 
website 

(If you'd like to read our thoughts on the Carrier Bag Shop also selling plastic bags, please look at the note at the bottom of this page.)

----------------------------------------------------- 
In Modbury its now not just about bags, we are trying to reduce our plastic waste in other ways.  
It's small start that will hopefully grow..

----------------------------------------------------- 
 
Suppliers of the cornstarch food containers, and food wraps  
London Biopackaging 
Unit 42, Pall Mall Deposit  
124-128 Barlby Road 
London  
W10 6BL 
UK 
Tel:+44 20 8969 8086 
Fax:+44 20 8969 8183  
Email:info@londonbiopackaging.com 
(Sourced by our Deli Owner) 
website 

----------------------------------------------------- 
 
Supplier of Bio floristry wrapping materials 
Jet Supplies Ltd Unit 7b 
Burnett Industrial Estate  
Cox's Green  
Wrington  
North Somerset  
BS40 5QR 
UK 
Tel: +441934 862200 
Fax: +441934 862277 
Email:sales@jetsupplies.co.uk 
(Sourced by our Florist) 
website 
 
 

Note: Two people have kindly written to us to point out that the carrier bag shop also sells plastic bags. We would like to thank them for taking the time to inform us; although it is a fact we are already well aware of.

When looking into paper bags just as we did for all our plastic bag alternatives we tried our best to find a Product that was good for the environment.

We were looking for paper bags that were European FSC and recycled plus all the other factors that we required (please look at our "Bag info" page to see requirements).

Due to dealing with over 40 shops differing needs of bag size, style and strength we found it impossible (and not through lack of trying) to find a wholesaler who sold purely just environmentally aware paper bags that met all our needs.

There are only a few stationery wholesalers in this country at the moment that do sell solely paper but their ranges are very small and could not cater for all the variety of bags the Modbury traders required. Thus we had to turn to the paper/plastic wholesalers. 
We guess a lot of wholesaler's work on the point of view that the vast majority of this country still uses plastic bags and while that market is still there they will supply to it.

From our point of view, while the country continues to use plastic bags our choice in wholesalers is very limited. However, the Carrier Bag Shop "Bags for Tree's" range is a very good environmental paper bag. Remember it's solely the product we support. The bags are unbleached, EU,SFC forested, part recycled and milled at a plant that has taken substantial steps to lower its emissions.

We view ourselves like any other customer with buying power. If we choose environmental paper bags over a normal paper bag we put our money where our belief is. It's the same as somebody walking into a shop and buying fair-trade organic coffee over regular coffee; you'd love the whole shop stocked with fair-trade organic but you know only when enough people start to buy those lines will the shop change all its stock. It boils down to good old consumer choice.

However this year has seen a fast growing market for a wholesaler to sell purely environmental paper bags. It just needs one environmental entrepreneur out there to jump in and start that business up to fill the niche.

As soon as someone does, we will be very interested.

<Back to Modbury Plastic Free site 
 
 
 
 
 

Bag information page 
 
 
 
Things you should be aware of when looking into alternative bags. 
Written by R.Hosking Ocober 2007 
 
Or I as like to call it, welcome to the land of smoke and mirrors. 
 
Reusable Bags. 
The reason I'm telling you this is so that you don't fall into the easy traps that have caught a lot of well meaning people already. 
 
It is easy to think that plastic bags are bad so by using an "environmental" reusable alternative from natural material has to be better for the environment.  
 
Broadly speaking this is correct. Anything that lasts a long time and can be reused time and time again is a good thing because it saves on energy and material; and yes, if it's been made from natural fabric it will biodegrade back into the soil quickly after its hopefully long working life. 
 
However, you also have to consider how that material is grown, harvested and manufactured, otherwise that lovely new eco bag that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling when you use it could actually have caused more harm in its production than you think. What you save the environment in plastic pollution you may have unwittingly substituted with toxic chemical use, native species destruction, air and water pollution, energy use and human welfare violations. 
 
Now that "Green" has moved into the mainstream of society, and reusable bags has become such a buzz-phrase, it doesn't really help any of us that this market has now enticed the hangers-on and the rogues, all trying to pull a fast one and take your good money for products that are very much less than green and they blooming well know it.  
Look on their websites and they will dazzle you with green terminology, blind you with a bit of spurious science, and offer amazing prices for very "environmentally friendly bags". 
 
It's very sad but even trying to do your little bit by choosing a bag alternative is now seen as fair game to some unscrupulous people out there whose main goal is making a fast buck by shedding crocodile tears over the state of the environment. 
 
However you can breathe a sigh of relief because there are some really good guys out there as well.  
There are the true ethically/environmentally guided doing it for all the right reasons and there are other bigger companies who may not be so ethically minded but who are at least trying to supply good alternative ranges.  
 
All you have to do is sift through the chaff to find the wheat. 
 
Sounds complicated, well alas it is, but hopefully this page can give you a good grounding and basic pointers you should be aware of when considering each of the materials your alternative bags are made from. 
 
Notice I call these bags alternatives, not environmental bags. 
 
The truth of the matter is and you might find this a surprising statement but there is no such thing as a totally environmentally sound bag on the market, not one. Why? Well because you are buying your bags from a wholesaler, who in turn has shipped them in from somewhere else.  
To a die-hard environmental thinker this alone is bad because the shipment has created a carbon footprint.  
 
The only way you could get a completely green environmental bag is if you are willing to go to the great lengths of say breeding your own organically reared sheep, shearing them by hand, knitting the wool into bags that you then sell from your front door.  
 
Alternative bags fall into the same trap that everything else in this world does; as soon as there is mass demand for a product it can no longer be produced on a cottage industry level. To keep up with demand it moves into manufacturing on a mass scale, which in most cases currently means more environmental damage and unsustainable practices.  
(For those of you interested in this subject, Ray C Anderson the visionary CEO of one of the world's largest carpet manufacturers is busy demonstrating that the current destructive nature of mass manufacture need not and cannot continue. Watch his video on our "Why & How To" page)  
 
So what to do? 
Try and limit the harm by buying the most ethically produced bag out there. Buy from a wholesaler who has already asked all the questions themselves and knows exactly where and how their bags are made, who makes them and has evidence to show you. 
Remember it is the product you are sourcing not the wholesaler!!! 
Just because the wholesalers website portrays them as green does not necessarily mean they are, go past the veneer and start asking questions.  
 
This is the process we went through to source the bag suppliers for Modbury and we are confident that the wholesalers we list on our website live up to our hopefully rigorous environmental standards.  
 
So things you need to ask are...  
 
Where (country of origin) has the product been made?  
If they say China its a big environmental "no no" at the moment.  
As the organisation Labour Behind the Label states  
"Nothing made in China can be described as ethical because employees there lack basic rights, there is also no recognised organic or fairtrade body in China to scrutinise goods". 
 
Is it certified fair-trade or at least produced to fair trade principles and standards?  
 
Is there written proof / guarantee that no child labour was involved at any stage in producing these items/products?  
 
Is the material unbleached?  
To bleach any material means they add an extra host of nasty chemicals, many toxic to us and the environment. It also means a huge amount of extra water is needlessly used and sometimes returned untreated and contaminated back into nature. 
(There are some safer less harmful bleaches on the market, but the processing still needs a vast amount of water) 
 
Is it made from certified organic and non-GMO or recycled material?  
If it isn't GMO free or at least recycled then you will be buying directly into something like BT cotton, or GMO hemp/jute. 
Think Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta and Unilever. 
If you don't know who these multinationals are then I recommend you Google them. 
 
What inks/dyes are used are they water/vegetable or oil based?  
Obviously you are looking for vegetable based inks the best ones are called "Azo Free, vegetable inks", and ideally soil association certificated. However by just not choosing oil based ( sometimes called Plasticol or Azo free Plasticol inks )and going for vegetable inks instead will make a huge difference.  
 
How has the product come into this country?  
Think of carbon footprint 
By the way, someone from the British Plastics Federation pointed out  
"Just to give you a simple example, one 20ft container holds 2 million lightweight supermarket check-out bags; the same 20ft container holds either 60,000 paper carriers, or 40,000 cotton carriers, or 30,000 jute carriers." 
Now I'm no mathematician but if you do some simple arithmetic on these stats (if they are indeed accurate) then 2million divided by 40,000 = 50. 
So by simply using and reusing your cotton cloth bag just 50 times, you have balanced out the carbon on it's transport, and you have also saved so much energy on manufacture of new materials.  
The whole point to these cloth bags, is to keep on reusing and reusing them . 
 
Are the bags made from totally natural materials, including glues and linings?  
Some material bags have a shiny lining on their inside usually made of a film called LDPE. LDPE is a plastic. weblink  
Also some bags use some pretty unsavoury glues/solvents. 
So be careful, the fabric maybe itself organic certified but then they plaster it in laminated plastic, toxic glues and oil based inks. 
I hate to single out a material but be wary of LDPE , oil based inks and glue used on some Jute bags. 
 
Has the factory of manufacture, taken steps to lower it emissions into the air and water?  
 
The other give away is the price.  
Unless grown and produced right on your doorstep it is incredibly hard to find environmental goods that are cheap. 
Simply because they have not used so many agricultural chemicals meaning their yields are smaller and take longer to grow, they need more man hours and the workers have been given a fair wage.  
All of these factors and more push the price up.  
If the price sounds too good to be true then guess what? 
However, just because its expensive doesn't mean it's environmentally friendly either, it can just mean that the wholesaler or a middleman has jumped the price up on some cheap goods. 
The main thing is to ask the questions above and do your homework.

Nowadays reusable bags are made from a whole host of materials:  
rattan, felt, wool, bamboo, straw, fern, vine, maize, tree bark, sea grass, sisal, mat grass, water hyacinth, cotton, linen, jute, hemp, green moss, sphagnum moss, cassava stem, banana leaf, bamboo leaf, palm fibre, coconut fibre, and that's just a few of them; so far too many for me to go into detail on each without boring you and myself witless. 
 
However there are some general rules you can apply.  
They all have pros and cons when it comes to their growth and manufacture. 
For me just reading the blurb printed about the benefits of a material is not enough. More often than not this is hiding some nasty little skeletons. 
 
If you really want to know what are the pros and cons then I recommend that you get onto Google, write the material of choice and then in inverted commas write key phases such as: 
(material) "water pollution" 
(material) "health hazards" 
(material)"sweat shops" 
(material)"persistent organic pollutants"  
 
One last thing to be aware of is that just because not much has been written, or you can't find many reports and papers on a material it does not mean that it's a good one. 
Some materials like cotton have been used for a long time and a lot is known about their potential damage to the environment, however there are many new products out there that have only come into mass use in the past 18 months so there is still a lot of unknowns regarding environmental effects, so be wary. 
 
Let's look at Cotton as an example:  
It has long been known that regular mass produced cotton is pretty bad for the environment. There have been many case studies made on its massive use of water for irrigation, its huge reliance on pesticides and nitrates, the amount of worker deaths during its manufacture, its very harmful bleaching agents and its under paid workers. In short, not good!  
However if you choose fairtrade, unbleached, organic cotton it is one of the better materials on the market, so the WWF tell us. 
Buy choosing those options you have just knocked out the majority of the harmful chemicals and the workers have a fair wage. Additionally well over 90% of organic cotton is rain fed not irrigated and 70% is biodynamic. weblink  
 
If you want to go as good as possible look out for EU grown organic cotton, however it's very hard to find and once found very expensive. 
 
But say you compare traditional nasty good for nothing cotton to Bamboo fabric, which is one of the hot new kids on the block. 
Bamboo fabric is a real buzz in eco stores and green-minded shops. 
When initially reading about you think 
"Wow it's a wonder material !".  
It's a completely natively grown crop, has minimal chemicals added in the manufacture of its yarn.  
The crop itself is very fast growing and needs no pesticides or fertilizers and it yields 50 times as much fibre as cotton. Bamboo is a really good natural filtering system for pollution in waterways and it can be grown on rough soil and helps stop erosion in deforested areas. 
Hang on, what's this about deforested areas? 
Why is there deforestation? 
Then think where does bamboo come from? 
Yes and alarm bells start to ring. 
Read a bit further and you find that because its such a new fabric there is no form of "organic" or "sustainable" certification for it as yet and its main production is in China.  
So fairtrade at the moment is out the question and due to so many jumping on the bamboo bandwagon production has gone through the roof. 
Now this maybe a fast growing crop but what new areas are they growing it in and how much native habitat is being lost? 
 
My personal view is to be very cautious when looking at bamboo fibre or any new material, until the industry has some internationally accepted guidelines and certifications in place. 
 
And so it goes on.  
Take any product and there will be pit falls. If you want to really try and limit your harm to the environment with your reusable bags, look at each material you are interested in using and play it off against the other to work out which one within your budget is the best. 
 
But which material is the best, there has to be a winner? 
Well my in humble opinion the closest you are going to find to an environment shopping bag is......?

Granny's and my favourite, the dear old traditional British wicker basket. 
 
Its made from 100% renewable, wild, native resource, which has to be managed in a totally sustainable way.  
Even if the individual crop in question is not completely organic, very little pesticides and nitrates are used.  
The willow is often hand cut and hand woven by workers who have been fairly paid. 
It's unbleached, un-dyed with no other nasty chemicals or glues added and its made right on our doorstep so minimal carbon footprint and it lasts for a good 10 if not 20 years.  
Additionally by buying one you are supporting traditional British craftsmen and women. 
 
The draw back is they are expensive and not at a price that you could hand them out for free to your residents. However, as in Modbury, its great to encourage some of the shops to stock them so customers have the choice. 
 
Here's a great website, so you can find your nearest basket makers in the UK.  
 
However the dirt cheap way is to make your own bag.  
Here is how, courtesy of Dave's Mum. Make your own bag.  
 
Lastly why go to this length of questioning? 
Well it's so important that you do. 
The majority of these cloth bags are made in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. 
Please let communities in these countries prosper, have free trade and dignity. 
Please don't cause them harm by not doing your homework. 
 
This is a trailer to a brilliant film that I would suggest anyone thinking of buying anything from India should watch. 
If you are interested in watching the whole film then you can buy it online from the official website. DVD  
 
 
Disposable Alternatives 
 
The agreement we arrived at in Modbury was that any disposable bag the trader sells as a carrier bag should be used only as a back up to the cloth bags (or other reusable bag the customer brings in). They are sold to customers who forget to bring a reusable bag with them.  
We decided that if we really wanted to limit our harm to the environment, then any disposable bag should not be viewed as a full on replacement for plastic bags.  
 
You may ask if both our disposable bags are biodegradable what's the problem?  
 
That's true but, producing any material or product uses resources and energy and creates a certain amount of pollution. To just swap from one disposable bag to another is not going to remove those factors. The only way to reduce is to limit use. 
 
We chose to use paper and biodegradable/compostable cornstarch as our disposable alternatives because they both married into our local council's infrastructure.  
South Hams District council allows us to recycle all our paper. They also supply us with a doorstep collection of all our green waste and verified that the cornstarch bags met with their requirements, as they were certified compostable. 
 
 
 
Paper bags 
 
 
 
Some people are very pro paper bags and say they are better for the environment than plastic.  
I believe it is always wise to err on the side of caution and pay as much attention to the problems with a particular material as the benefits. This should ultimately lead to a more balanced decision on that product's merits. 
 
So what's my personal opinion on regular paper bags?  
Well, from all I've read, mass produced paper is incredibly bad for the environment. 
I'm not just talking paper bags, I'm talking all types of paper - writing paper, tissue paper, toilet paper, news print paper, magazine, telephone books, gift wrap paper etc.  
Just like mass manufactured cotton, paper is very polluting with high use of energy and water.  
 
But even with all of these factors surely it has to be better for the environment then a plastic? 
 
Well, if we just look at production for a second, and you number crunch the stats between energy use for a regular paper bag compared to plastic bags it actually comes out worse. Added to that, paper fills up more space in landfill and is more bulky to transport. weblink.  
 
If paper bags are so bad for the environment, why even consider them? 
 
The three main reasons: paper can come from a sustainable resource, it's biodegradable and currently in the UK there is a far higher percentage of paper bags being recycled.  
Additionally, just like cotton, if you pick your paper bags wisely you can reduce the harmful effects on the environment and so making it a viable bag alternative. 
The other measure that I believe is essential is to encourage a reduction in use. In other words charge for the bags. 
 
Of the three alternative bags we use, paper was one that we gave the most scrutiny. In Modbury because we charge for both paper and cornstarch we have seen a huge reduction in their consumption.  
The reduction has been so significant that, six months on, some shops have still not got through their first order of paper bags and others are still wading through paper bags they had before we changed over. 
This huge reduction has saved the traders money and also saved in transport use of petrol and obviously saved energy and pollution in manufacture because we have no need for large amounts. 
 
However this is not the only step we took, we were very careful in the paper bags we chose to sell and thought about each stage of their manufacture.  
 
If you are going to go for paper alternatives then to limit damage and harm these are the questions you need to ask.  
Also to help you here is a link to the WWF paper scorecard. 
 
Does the paper you use come from Sustainable Forest Certified (SFC) timber or from Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) forests?  
 
Has the timber come from inside the EU?  
The EU foresty standards are far higher and more sustainable than in other areas of the world. If it has come from an EU country it also means that there is no risk of tropical forest depletion and its carbon footprint is lower.  
 
Is the paper unbleached, and undyed?  
The same reasons as any material. 
 
Is it partly or totally recycled?  
 
The paper doesn't have any watermarks or embossed patterns?  
These mean increased use of water and energy 
 
The paper has no lamination or wax finishing? 
Once again needless use of extra chemicals and materials  
 
Are the glues used on it biodegradable and vegetable based?  
 
Has the paper mill been awarded an EU eco-label?  
This is quite a hard fact to find out and you may have to do a lot of digging round. The Finnish paper mill that produces our bags has been awarded this, but I had to find that out for myself.  
Our wholesaler hadn't got a clue, they knew it was a good mill but that was about it.  
 
The bag hasn't got any printing on it? 
Once again it's an extra use of energy, water and inks. 
 
(By not having any finishings on the bag, it makes it far more easy to recycle/compost.) 
 
Lastly, keep your eye out for new products that are coming on the market. Paper now no longer has to be made from wood, its can be made from a host of materials. 
We really hope these guys start making bags soon,take a look. 
 
 
Do you know the difference between degradable plastic, biodegradable plastic, and compostable plastic? 
 
It is this range of alternative bag materials that is probably the most confusing and complex for us general public to understand. 
 
There are many papers written on the different materials but there is also a full on war raging between the industries responsible for producing the different materials (with much mud slinging and propaganda coming from certain camps) 
In the middle of all of this are people like us trying to decide which is best for the environment and the most sustainable? 
 
So with that in mind I'll try to make this as simple as possible to understand. 
But I urge to you to research and read as much as possible, don't just take my word for it. 
 
People may confuse 'degradable' bags (which cannot be composted) with biodegradable and compostable bags, which can. It gets even more confusing when some manufacturers state their bags to be biodegradable/degradable. To actually be officially able to call a material biodegradable and compostable the material has to meet these Industry standards: website  
 
But some companies still persist in calling their product biodegradable when it doesn't meet this standard. 
 
Degradable plastic  
 
Degradable' bags are made of similar plastic to normal carrier bags, but they contain a small amount of mineral/chemical additive. This additive is also sometimes known as a brittling agent.  
 
The additives speed up the fragmentation of the bag. Most of the products using the label Degradable plastic degrade as result of physical and chemical impact (fracture into smaller pieces of plastic).  
 
Natural biological activity is not a significant part of the degradation of these products and the process is too slow to earn the classification Biodegradable or Compostable (the biological degradation will typically take many years). 
 
The manufacturers usually give a timescale for how long the bag will take to break down.  
However the timelines given by the various manufacturers have been highly disputed if the bag is in less than perfect conditions (i.e out blowing round in the environment rather then in controlled lab with perfect test conditions).  
 
Some case studies have shown the colder and darker the conditions the longer it takes for the products to break down. The products rely on the amount of moisture, humidity, light and heat. Obviously all of these factors in any environment are variable. 
 
Degradable bags are known as Oxo-degradable, Photo-degradable or Hydro-degradable. Environmentally speaking these prefixes are irrelevant as none of these materials have ever been certified as compostable (biodegradable). 
 
Depending on the company the additive varies in what chemicals/ minerals are used, companies even use sawdust.  
 
However some additives used as brittling agents by certain manufacturers have been proven in independent studies to be heavy metals such as Lead, Zinc or Cobalt or "transient metals" such as magnesium chloride.  
 
Degradable bags can cause trouble with the recycling of other plastics. Degradable bags aren't meant to be recycled (although some claim they are safe to do so).  
The Government funded Waste and Resources Action Programme does not think they are recyclable and has issued a guidance note recommending such additives are not used in packaging (carrier bags are officially classified as packaging),  
website  
 
Many recycling firms also have some grave concerns about this happening due to the general public lack of knowledge in this field and know that these products will inevitably end up being mixed in to the material that is sent to recyclers. 
 
Andrew Green is the director of environmental affairs for BPI, Britain's largest recycler of plastic materials. "Our concerns on degradable materials entering the waste stream is that they could break down once turned into new products.  
This would be bad enough if large volumes of bin-liners degraded before they were used, but it is clearly an even bigger concern for our damp proof membranes and damp proof course products - which protect houses and buildings against moisture and gas vapours - and are intended to last!" (Quoted from the channel four website) website  
 
Biodegradable /Compostable plastic (also known as vegetable starch) 
 
 
 
There is a swathe of vegetable starch products now coming onto the market all using different vegetable matter. 
In Modbury we tested out Corn/maize Starch, Wheat Starch, Potato Starch, Tapioca Starch and wood starch. All of these types of materials claimed to be biodegradable/compostable, but what is biodegradable/compostable?  
 
Biodegradable plastic is a degradable plastic in which the degradation results from the action of naturally occurring micro-organisms such as bacteria, fungi and algae. 
 
In order to be classified compostable, the materials degradation must meet with certain specified criteria such as the rate biodegradation, maximum residue of material left at a specific point in time in compost and a requirement for the material to have no harmful impact on the final compost or the composting process. 
 
All compostable plastic is therefore also biodegradable. The most commonly used standards for compostable plastic are the European standard EN-13432 and DIN V-54900 and American standard ASTM #D6400-99. 
Okay so these international standards may sound a bit complicated ? 
Here is the easy thing to look out for. 
There are three different bodies that award the compostable standards; two are for the European Union one of which is in Germany and has this logo: 
 
 
Now this German certification is the one that many British biodegradable packaging firms use.  
However there is another European body, which is Belgian. 
This Belgian equivalent means that product meets exactly the same EU level of compostability: 
 
 
So if you are in Europe and you see either of these logos it means the same thing. 
OKcompost is the Belgian equivalent of the German sapling logo - they both meet with the European set standard. 
Now if you are in the USA you will have a different logo again to look out for which is this one: 
 
 
Basically all three logos mean the same thing. If they are printed on a product it has met with the international standards. 
I Strongly recommend you only choose products that have at least one of these logos awarded it. 
Otherwise you run the real risk of the product not being compostable. 
 
Manufacturers have to work incredibly hard to be awarded these standards so the more logos that are branded on their products the more they have worked to achieve them. website  
 
Lastly, and an important thing for you to be aware of, some compostable plastic has only been awarded these certificates for international composting standards in an industrial compost facility (as opposed to home composting) Industrial composters have set levels of heat, aeration and moisture.  
As a result, the micro-organisms that eat and breakdown compost become far more active then they would in the compost bin/heap in your back garden. 
So in short if you try and compost these bags at home they may take, and usually do take a lot longer to breakdown. 
 
However the Belgium compost body OK compost is more on the ball than other standards bodies and has released a new award standard, which is Okcompost home. 
 
 
If you see this on a material it means that its been cleared by European standards to compost at home and will biodegrade within the given set time allocated.  
 
One little warding is ensure the logo is genuine - Only products with an S number in the right-hand and corner are traceable as certified.  
 
 
Recently an unscrupulous supplier provided a magazine wrap for a national weekend newspaper, which was covered in logos including the OK Home but without a S number - if the product does not have a S OK Home number it is not home compostable. Plus if a manufacturer puts a false number on their product it can easily be traced! 
 
Important Things to Consider Regarding Biodegradable and Compostable-Plastics. 
 
Notice here, I'm calling these materials biodegradable plastic, not vegetable starch. Many people, including myself, nickname these bags cornstarch or potato starch, but the actual make up of the bags is not just made from starch there is what is known as a polyester matrix built into the bags. 
Hang on... polyester? 
That's plastic isn't it?!!!  
In short, yes it is and you do need to be aware of this, because its something some of the wholesalers tend not to mention. 
However there are many forms of plastic. Plastic is the general term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products. 
 
A regular plastic bag is made from polyethylene which has a different molecular structure to polyester. 
Regular polyester is not designed to biodegrade, however there are new polyesters on the market that have been designed to biodegrade. 
 
 
 
Put incredibly simply, the main difference between polyethylene and biodegradable polyester molecules are that the biopolyester molecules are small enough for micro-organisms to get their mouths round and digest while polyethylene molecules are too big hence they remain intact and do not breakdown in compost because nothing can digest them. 
 
The other difference is that polyester can be made from vegetable oil, it doesn't have to be made from petroleum (although a lot of vegetable starch bags still use petroleum based polyester). Technological progress means that increasingly higher percentages of renewable materials are now being used, but you should definitely ask your wholesaler about this. 
Here's a really good independent paper by California State University which trialed the differing types of material on the market. website  
 
GM grown corn. 
Once again another trap not to fall into. 
The ecology centre website has a collection of articles and papers about Genetically Engineered Corn. Look at the bottom of the page under the title "Biodegradable Plastic". website 
 
The Tropical Deforestation Issue 
There is also a lot now being published about the deforestation of huge areas of Indonesia, Burma and Malaysia for the fast growing industrial crops palm oil and maize. It something many of us knew but now thankfully environmental campaigners and agencies are producing papers. There are some real facts and hard figures coming out about how bad it is. website 
A large percentage of this expanding and dangerous industry is going to produce bio-fuels and products like margarine but there are also some bio-plastics so you need to be careful not to fall into that trap either!!!!. 
 
 
There are more and more biodegradable plastic bag manufacturers cropping up all the time. Too many for me examine each one on this site.  
Because of this I am just going say that we went for the best one we could find in terms of environmental ethics to supply cornstarch bags to Modbury. This was Biobags (in Norway) made from the material Mater-Bi produced by the company Novamont (in Italy).  
 
This is not an official endorsement as such because we are only a little west country town, but it is a good starting point for your research. You may find better in which case go for it. Here is a list of EU companies that meet with the European standard EN-13432 for you to check out website 
Here is another useful site with loads more links website  
 
However, you should ask yourself ..is it really wise to grow food crops so we have something disposable to carry our shopping home in ? 
If you use a starch bag then you need to use it to its full purpose (which I go into below) and not just as a replacement for a plastic carrier bag. 
 
 
Biodegradable Bags and Methane. 
You may have read sentences like this: "when paper bags and vegetable starch bags go to landfill they go anaerobic and give off methane - a potent greenhouse gas. Therefore plastic bags are better for climate change". 
You can be certain that this line or argument always originates with conventional plastic bag manufacturers.  
As an argument it is RUBBISH (pun intended).  
 
Although the sentence itself is true it ignores the bigger picture by such a degree it is almost criminal. The bigger picture is this: 
 
1. LANDFILLS BY DEFINITION AND DESIGN ARE ANAEROBIC ENVIRONMENTS 
 
2. ANY BIODEGRADABLE ORGANIC MATTER PRODUCES METHANE IN AN ANAEROBIC ENVIRONMENT (FOOD WASTE, PLANTS, TREES, MEAT, NATURAL CLOTHING, ETC) 
 
3. 68% (11.5 MILLION TONNES) OF MUNICIPAL WASTE SENT TO LANDFILL IN ENGLAND THIS YEAR WAS BIODEGRADABLE  
(ALL METHANE PRODUCING) source: defra 2007 
 
4. LANDFILLS ARE REQUIRED BY LAW TO LIMIT METHANE ESCAPING INTO THE ATMOSPHERE 
 
5. LANDFILLS REPRESENT A FAILURE IN WASTE MANAGEMENT 
 
6. HARDLY ANY WASTE GOES TO LANDFILLS IN THE NETHERLANDS (I.E THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES) "Take a look!"  
 
 
 
 
 
This Year WRAP launched a campaign called "Love Food, Hate Waste" Please take a look. website  
Looks like we all need to curb our waste of food in everyway, but obviously there is always going to be some food and peelings that we will have to dispose. 
The truth of the matter is if we compost this natural waste then we save an amazing amount going to landfill and convert it into fantastic compost that helps soils and doesn't create methane. This is because the micro-organisms in compost need oxygen to become active. If you are a gardener you'll know you have to turn a compost heap to get oxygen into to it  
(i.e a compost heap is an AEROBIC environment) 
 
If you live in the middle of a city or in a flat with no garden and think composting is out of the question.!! 
Think again, I live in a top floor flat and I compost all my food waste in a kitchen composter, and no it doesn't smell and it's totally clean.  
There are now a large variety of them on the market and many councils including our one here positively promote composting and will even collect your food waste/green waste. 
Here are some links to some home/kitchen composters on the market: 
The Bin Company: "Weblink"  
Biobags Scotland: "Weblink"  
Wiggly Wigglers: "Weblink"  
 
But there are many more out there, just go onto Google and have a hunt round. 
 
And here are some useful sites about composting: 
If you have a garden or backyard: 
A step to step on how to start a compost heap. "Weblink"  
A composting guide "Weblink"  
The composting association official website "Weblink"  
 
This is when fully home compostable bags come into their own and hands down beat non-biodegradable bags full stop. If you reuse that bag for food waste it's either sent to the council for composting or you use it in your home composter. 
By doing this you are helping to save a potentially large amount of your household waste going to landfill and so hugely limiting the risk of that food creating methane which as we know is 20 times more potent then CO2 as a greenhouse gas.This is also how you can dispose of paper which is too dirty to be recycled. 
 
If you are thinking about using biodegradable bags , here are the all important questions you need to ask a wholesaler. 
 
In which region/country are the raw materials for your bags grown? 
(ideally you are looking for within the EU) 
 
Has any native habit been taken/destroyed for the farming of the crop, or is it on traditional farming land? 
(Some of the more ethical suppliers have taken over brown field sites, so not to deplete food growing areas; others, such as some of the potato starch producers actually use waste starch from chip manufacture.) 
 
Are they certified GM free?  
 
What percentage of the bag is made from non-renewable material?  
 
What additional chemicals are used in the manufacture?  
(for instance, does the product meet EN13432 which includes testing for eco-toxicity and heavy metals?) 
 
Are the bags certified under EU standard as being home compostable?  
 
Has the manufacturer taken any steps to lower their emissions and use renewable energy?  
 
 
Lastly:  
 
Re-educate, reduce, reduce, reduce.... reuse a 1000 times over and only then recycle.  
 
As I mentioned above with both our disposable bags, the key has never been to use them as a direct replacement for disposable plastic bags. 
For this reason among others we never bothered with putting any printing on them, we thought it a waste of resources and money. 
The other key is how the traders deal with the customer. Depending which trader serves you in Modbury it can range from " Do you really need a bag?" to "You know we charge for our disposable bags?" to "Do you actually want a bag?".  
By encouraging people to use their own reusable bag and charging for the disposables we have seen a huge reduction. 
Some of the gift shops hardly sell any disposable bags at all and even the supermarket has gone from issuing 5000 free plastic bags a week to now selling somewhere between 400 and 500 cornstarch bags in the same time span (a 90% reduction), which we think is not bad at all. 
 
All this info is only really telling about the process we went through in Modbury.  
I kindly ask you to please do your own research, please look at all the alternatives and please make your own choices and decisions. 
 
 
<Back to Modbury Plastic Free site 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Home

Get Involved

Beach Litter

Further Action

News and Events

Contact Us

>> select >> Plastic bag free areas  
 
Plastic bag free areas

Below is a list of towns that either are plastic bag free or are in the planning stages  - Let us know if your town is missing from the list and we will add you in!

Please contact aab@mcsuk.org to get your community added or for any further queries.

To join the Google forum on going plastic bag free click here

| copyright mcs 2008 | data protection |

|Marine Conservation Society|Company Limited by Guarantee No: 2550966| 
|Registered Charity No: England and Wales No 1004005|Scotland No SC037480| 
|Registered Office: Unit 3, Wolf Business Park, Alton Road, Ross-on-Wye HR9 5NB|