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sify news, April 9, 2010
Uses of biodegradable plastic bags in Costa Rica has increased significantly in the last three years as a result of an intensified climate conservation campaign across the country and in Central America.
Consumers are now purchasing disposable and environment friendly plastic containers, bags and bottles. Such products are gaining ground in less than three years after the technology came in the market, said Silvia Vega, CEO of Milenio Tres, distributor of D2W technology used to convert plastics into degradable material.
Although biodegradable products make up less than 10 percent of all plastics on the market in the Central American country, the trend is towards continued rapid growth, she said.
The increased use of 'green' products in Costa Rica is part of a worldwide trend; among other Central American countries that have embraced oxo-biodegradable plastics are El Salvador and Guatemala.
According to Milenio Tres, close to 220 million tonnes of plastic is produced annually worldwide and approximately 20 million tonnes of plastic debris end up in rivers and oceans.
The company also estimates that 90 percent of the plastic made since 1930 remains somewhere on the planet as rubbish without decomposing, polluting earth, air and water.
International environmental watchdogs say nearly one million seabirds die annually from ingesting plastic, while turtles in oceans all over the world mistake floating plastic bags and sheets for jellyfish and choke to death.
In Costa Rica, roughly 4,500 tonnes of urban solid waste is produced every day. Of them, approximately 30 percent ends up in rivers and oceans.
Oxo-biodegradable plastic is anywhere from between five percent and 10 percent more expensive to manufacture, Vega said, but there are ways to bring that cost down.
'In reality, this cost is nothing compared to the environmental benefit of having waste that will decompose instead of accumulating on the planet for decades,' Vega said.
D2W technology is used in more than 90 countries and has been approved in accordance with international guidelines, including those of the US Food and Drug Administration.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Biodegradable plastic use on rise in Costa Rica
Friday, February 12, 2010
New law: They don't take plastic
Starting this Thursday, N.C. is outlawing plastic bottles in landfills. But recycling rangers likely won't bust you.
By Lynn Bonner, charlotteobserver.com, Sept. 28, 2009
Public service announcements, fliers, and corporate-gift cards are all aimed at getting N.C. households to comply with a state law kicking in Thursday that bans plastic bottles from landfills.
But don't look for the trash cops if soda bottles end up in your garbage cans.
"That's not the spirit of the law," said Scott Mouw, the state's recycling director. "Clearly, this is more of a law of spirit or intent, everyone recognizing the positive reasons to recycle."
State enforcement efforts will be targeted at haulers who show up at landfills with loads of banned material. Most local governments don't have the power or the interest in dogging residents who don't recycle.
Charlotte's Solid Waste Services department does not conduct enforcement, spokeswoman Brandi Williams said. "It's a state law, so it is on them to enforce it," Williams said.
Charlotte offers a volunteer recycling program in which households place certain items in red bins and workers collect them weekly. Workers who pick up recycling sort the plastic, metal and paper at the curb.
Starting next July in Charlotte, recycling will be collected every other week, instead of weekly. The city is trading the red recycling bins for larger rolling containers similar to its trash cans. Workers will dump everything into trucks, and the plastic-metal-paper sorting will be at an automated facility.
The move is part of a plan to save about $26 million over 10 years.
Without enforcement efforts, though, North Carolina's embrace of recycling has been more of a half-hug.
North Carolina missed a 10-year recycling goal it set back in 1991 for reducing trash disposal. In fact, more trash went to landfills, not less. Garbage disposal went from 1.01 tons per person in 1992 to 1.21 tons per person by June 2001.
The state now has a new goal: Recycle 2 million tons of bottles, cans, and other materials each year by 2012. N.C. residents currently recycle about 1.3 million tons a year.
The state recycles fewer than one in five bottles, Mouw said, and he's sure that rate can go up.
One of the state's new tactics to persuade people to keep plastic out of the trash is to focus on the empty bottles as a raw material for the state recycling industry. The state has plants that are a step in the manufacturing chain that turns used bottles into new bottles and other materials. The largest plastics recycling plant in the nation is to open in Fayetteville next year.
Though state law bars specific materials from landfills - such as aluminum cans, big appliances and tires - recycling practices vary across the state and are largely governed by local ordinance.
Some communities, such as Orange County and Cary, constantly add items to their list of recyclables, while other localities make a more limited effort.
Orange County, which includes Hillsborough and Chapel Hill, recycled more plastic per person than any other county last year, according to state figures. Orange residents recycled about 29.5 pounds of plastic bottles per person in 2007-08.
Pamlico County was the next closest with 14.8 pounds per person. The state average was 3.8 pounds per person.
"People across the county have a really high recycling ethic," said Blair Pollock, Orange County's solid waste planner.
Four counties didn't collect plastic for recycling. Some of the state's municipalities - Kannapolis being the largest - don't have curbside recycling, Mouw said.
Katie Burdett, who wrote about plastics recycling as a requirement for her master's in public administration from UNC Chapel Hill this year, said the state would need to require recycling and develop an enforcement strategy to maximize the ban's impact.
Local communities' recycling success largely depends on the commitment of those in charge of running it, said Burdett, who interned in the state recycling office. Communities that do best have someone whose sole job it is to encourage recycling, keep in touch with major garbage producers and watch the recycling markets, she said.
Charlotte Observer staff writer Fred Clasen-Kelly contributed.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Bottled Water Business Is on the Decline
By Dana Chivvis, Sphere, Dec. 18, 2009
After nearly two weeks of disappointments in Copenhagen, environmentalists can celebrate one small piece of news today: Bottled water sales are down and are expected to continue to fall next year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp.
The $11 billion bottled-water industry saw nothing but growth for three decades, peaking in 2007 when each person consumed 29 gallons of bottled water a year, MSNBC reports. That number was down 3.2 percent in 2008 and is expected to drop another 2 percent this year.
The fall in consumption may have to do with a movement to make people aware of the effects plastic has on the environment. Because it takes plastic up to 1,000 years to break down naturally, water bottles contribute greatly to the buildup of trash in the environment.
One place particularly hard hit is a swirling area of water in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas, called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The water in this area is filled with an estimated 3.5 million tons of trash, much of which is plastic.
Environmentalists also point to the toxicity of plastic production and the health hazards that exist from drinking or eating from plastic containers. In 2007, scientists discovered that one of the chemicals used in plastic, bisphenol A, interferes with embryonic development in a way that may lead to obesity in adults.
If that's not enough to make you put down the bottle, the Sierra Club adds that water companies are drying up household wells and lakes, affecting wetlands, and using three times the amount of water that goes into one of their bottles to produce the water itself.
But the environmental movement might not be able to take all the credit for the decline in bottled water sales. The dip could be because of the recession. Bottled water sales fell less than all other beverages this year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp.
"Environmental concerns among consumers may have had an effect on bottled water sales, but the primary reason sales are soft is the economy," said Gary Hemphill, managing director of the Beverage Marketing Corp.
Still, some bottled water producers have taken the environmentalist's message to heart. Nestlé, the world's largest bottler, has begun producing bottles that use less plastic and has introduced a new brand, called Resource, that uses bottles made from 35 percent recycled plastic. The company is also giving out money for local recycling programs, MSNBC reports.
Tom Lauria, spokesman for the International Bottled Water Association, said the industry is even working on plastic bottles made from biodegradable corn.
"We will see in our lifetime biodegradable plastic, and this whole controversy will disappear," he said.
But while he sees the controversy inherent in his industry, Lauria doesn't think the environmentalists have had any effect on bottled water sales.
"People love their bottled water."
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