Biodegradable bags can hold a full load of shopping after 3 years in the environment

[OnlinePoker]

Biodegradable and compostable plastic bags are still capable of carrying full loads of shopping after being exposed in the natural environment for three years, a new study shows.

Researchers from the University of Plymouth examined the degradation of five plastic bag materials widely available from high street retailers in the UK.

They were then left exposed to air, soil and sea, environments which they could potentially encounter if discarded as litter.

The bags were monitored at regular intervals, and deterioration was considered in terms of visible loss in surface area and disintegration as well as assessments of more subtle changes in tensile strength, surface texture and chemical structure.

https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/uop-bbc042519.php

[Igel]

1. They use biodegradable plastic cups at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

But if you look up the conditions necessary, they're unpleasant: High humidity and temperatures well above a 120 degrees F for months of time before significant degradation occurs.

If you hot compost and constantly shift the plastic to a fresh batch of compost regularly, over time it will (most likely) degrade. But that's not what the average consumer would understand, to the extent the average consumer even notices.

[lordsummerisle]

2. What we need is

some device or process that consumers can use at home to destroy or convert plastic bags in an environmentally friendly way...

[Meowmee]

3. The ones I tried

Seemed to degrade too easily because because they fell apart as soon as they got a little bit wet.

[Harker]

4. It saddens me that few people carry cloth bags.

I'll be delighted when plastic bags, and innumerable other bits of plastic crap, are completely outlawed.

[demigoddess]

8. I have been using reusable bags for years but we still have a lot of plastic trash

because almost every single product is wrapped in plastic. Sometimes two layers. plastic over plastic. I wish we would go back to glass bottles and jars.

[playaseeker]

5. Its an American thing

I have lived overseas on several occasions. In Europe everyone brings cloth bags with them to the store, they just do it. It seems like other countries have leaders than make a decision for a positive change and everyone gets on board.

In the US we are still clinging to imperial measurements (feet, miles, pounds, gallons), we insist on filling our lives with one-use plastics and instead of making rational choices on transportation, we all sit in traffic jams in enormous SUVs. I think it is the whole manifest destiny thing. Americans have been told all their lives that they are exceptional, so they can just do what they want. They are better than the rest of the world. A lot like spoiled children.

[CentralMass]

6. Oregon's House just voted for a ban on plastic shopping bags

The Senate still has to vote on it.

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/04/oregon-house-approves-ban-on-plastic-checkout-bags.html

[yonder]

7. In their usual blindness, the Idaho legislature several years ago

voted to disallow local communities from unilaterally banning plastic bags as they see fit.

The way I understand it, a manufacturer/distributor/seller of these bags bent some legislator's ear to write(?) and introduce that bill. And of course, one state away from Oregon here in redneckville it passed.

Yay, more plastic whether a community wants it or not. There went their conservative "local control is best" argument.