Monday, 9 May 2011

Re: [greenlifestyle] Kemasan Hoka2 Bento dari styrofoam

Beberapa hari y.l., Ibu Yuyun kirim link yang sangat menarik ke artikel di majalah "Nature" mengenai aditif yang bikin plastik cepat terurai.


"Eco-friendly plastics memang bisa terurai tapi prosesnya sangat lama dan lambat. Tidak bisa dicampur dengan komposting karena akan mengacaukan hasil dan proses kompos Kesimpulan scientists: oxo-degradable plastics itu gak ada manfaatnya buat lingkungan... "
 
Eco-friendly plastics disintegrate, but might just linger in the environment.
Although it is clear that 'degradable' plastic bags, for example, will fall apart in the environment, the resulting fragments can persist for a long time, and there are no long-term studies on these pieces. A key issue is that products can be described as biodegradable without reference to the timescale it takes them to fully biodegrade.

"There are a tremendous number of papers about degradable polyethylene but no one has really shown a high degradation," says Ann-Christine Albertsson, a polymer researcher at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and lead author on the critical review. "Of course they degrade in one way – they are losing part of their properties. But if you mean it as a positive for nature, that has not been proved."

The Defra report suggests that oxo-degradable fragments left outside in the United Kingdom would become small fragments over two to five years. The biodegradation of these small fragments then proceeds "very slowly", it notes.

These plastics should not be composted, as their breakdown fragments will ruin the resulting compost.

"Our conclusion was there is no benefit to the environment of oxo-degradable plastics," Thomas told Nature.


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