Long read folks but it certainly is important for us to see the truth of the article and weigh that waste against using natural renewable resources.
FUR COMMISSION USA COMMENTARY, MARCH 14, 2008
Plastic Bags on Our Backs
By Teresa Platt, Executive Director, FCUSA
http://www.furcommission.com/resource/perspect999ce.htmCreated in the 1970s as an inexpensive
convenience, the plastic bag is now an everyday
item with costs that are adding up fast. We use
tens of billions of bags a month, or about half a
million bags a minute!(1) The vast majority are
used only once and end up as litter or in
landfills.
Because plastic bags are light and compressible,
they constitute only 2% of landfill by volume.(2)
The crux of the problem is their mineral origin.
While materials, natural and synthetic, that
derive from vegetable or animal matter are fully
biodegradable, those derived from mineral matter
are not. And the origin of the ubiquitous plastic
bag is, of course, oil.(3) So they don't
biodegrade, and eventually disintegrate into
smaller and smaller polymer pieces that can
become sources of pollution in their own right as
they migrate into the food chain. The plastic
bags we use today will be with us virtually
forever.(4)
Even more sobering are reports of a massive,
swirling dump of debris, mostly plastics, fouling
the ocean.(5) Floating "clouds" of waste carried
by currents into the "North Pacific subtropical
gyre" result in a vortex of flotsam halfway
between San Francisco and Hawaii. This was just
an interesting phenomenon when the debris was all
organic matter in various stages of
decomposition. But the modern-day Pacific Garbage
Patch, as it is now called, has been growing,
along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every
decade since the 1950s when we started our love
affair with the "cheap" convenience of inorganic
plastic. The Pacific Garbage Patch is now twice
the size of Texas, a 3.5-million-ton soupy mass,
80% of it plastic.(6)
Now such knowledge is hitting us where we shop.
In an effort to reduce usage of the common
plastic bag, cities from New York to San
Francisco and countries from China to Australia
have passed laws and regulations to address the
problem, experiencing various levels of success.
Ireland, an island country that declared it had
run out of landfill space,(7) has been more
successful than most. With a young population
open to change, Ireland addressed the issue by
slapping a tax (equivalent to US 33 cents) on
each plastic shopping bag. The result was a
stunning 94% reduction in usage within weeks.
Articles lauding this feat featured pictures of
happy shoppers pushing carts full of canvas
shopping bags - reuseable, biodegradable,
recyclable, and made from a renewable resource.
Ironically, these very same eco-friendly shoppers
have houses full of plush toys(8) and were
wearing synthetic clothing (essentially plastic
bags in another form) on their backs. Plastic
plush toys, plastic clothing, plastic belts,
plastic purses and wallets, plastic stockings,
socks and even shoes. Plastic clothing in its
many forms does not biodegrade as it too, like
the plastic bag, is chemically manufactured from
the same non-renewable oil.
And statistics show that little of this form of
plastic, plastic clothing, is reused or recycled.
One has to ask, is plastic clothing killing us?
The International Herald Tribune commented on
Ireland's test case, "Plastic bags became
socially unacceptable - on par with wearing a fur
coat or not cleaning up after your dog."
The IHT neglected to take the thought much
further, ignoring the fact that the alternative
to natural fiber fur garments, which it so
blithely dissed, is, of course, plastic clothing
made from oil. (It also missed the irony that
people who do clean up after their dogs,
generally use plastic bags!)
Synthetic clothing materials such as eco-fleece,
polyester, nylon and pleather (fake leather), and
all those fuzzy plush toys, are all just plastic
in other forms.(9) In the UK, approximately 90%
of clothing is imported and fully 1.5 to 2
million tonnes of clothing waste is generated
every year!(10) Of this clothing offal:
63% (1.2 million tonnes) enters the household waste stream going to landfills;
16% (300,000 tonnes) is recovered;(11)
21% is unaccounted for, and assumed to fill the
"national wardrobe" - closets and drawers.
Very little fiber - less than 3% - is re-used in the UK.
Volumes of fibers produced, imported or exported for the UK are:
60% synthetic;
29% non-synthetic or natural fibers (of which 15% is cotton).(12)
From these figures we can estimate that 60% of
the clothing waste that ends up in British
landfills is composed of non-biodegradable
synthetics adding up to 720,000 tonnes of waste
annually.
But these figures are just for the UK where the
population is 60 million souls. The Earth's
population is 100 times that. But most of the
Earth is full of stalwart fans of natural fibers
so it is most likely misleading to extrapolate
the UK figure out to the rest of the world. If we
did, we'd have 72 million tonnes of plastic
clothing waste piling up every year.
Humans have succeeded in a vast manipulation of
chemical compounds but we are not all locked into
this model, the short-term cheap/long-term
expensive plastic clothing culture seen in the
UK. Not yet anyway.
Meanwhile, the UK is simply awash in plastic clothing and seeks solutions.
The Daily Mail interviewed environmentalists on
the subject of natural fiber clothing versus
inorganic synthetic clothing, plastic clothing.
Said one, "Most people have no idea that every
time they buy [synthetic clothing] they are
helping to pollute the world."
The Daily Mail determined that more than half of
the UK's emissions of the poisonous greenhouse
gas nitrous oxide comes from nylon production.
The same report included a comment from consumer
magazine In Touch: "[S]ynthetic materials are
responsible for large-scale factory pollution of
our waterways, rivers, canals and even the sea."
-In a recent WWF report, Deeper Luxury (p32), the
manager of a suit outfitter lamented, "Ninety per
cent of [the] clothing [that] people buy these
days ends up as landfill within two years." He
also noted, however, that high-end brands defy
this trend, offering repair facilities to ensure
that natural fiber garments last several years or
even generations.
Commented an environmentalist to the Daily Mail,
"Unlike a real fur coat which can be refashioned
and may last a lifetime, a fake fur jacket is
likely to be thrown out at the end of the season"
to end up in a landfill.(13)
"There it will sit with the rest of the tights
and stockings made of nylon which have been
discarded. Buried out of sight, but a few feet
under the ground, the chemicals in them can seep
out into nearby fields and rivers. It is a
pollution threat to humans, wildlife and our
domestic animals."(14)
***
What the experts say ...
From Biodegradable and sustainable fibres, edited
by R.S. Blackburn, Woodhead Publishing, 2005.
Introduction by R.S. Blackburn, page xv:
The main problems with synthetic polymers are
that they are non-degradable and non-renewable.
Since their invention, the use of these synthetic
fibres has increased oil consumption
significantly, and this continues today;
arguably, polyester now is the most used of all
fibres, taking over from cotton. Oil and
petroleum are non-renewable (non-sustainable)
resources and at the current rate of consumption,
these fossil fuels are only expected to last for
another 50-60 years; the current petroleum
consumption rate is estimated to be 100,000 times
the natural generation rate.(17)
The Energy Information Administration projects
that world conventional oil production will peak
somewhere between 2021 and 2112, depending on the
annual production growth rate (0-3%) and resource
estimates (2248-3896 billion barrels). A maximum
production growth rate (3% a year) combined with
a low resource estimate (2248 billion barrels)
gives a peak production year of 2021. For the
expected (mean-resource) USGS case (3003 billion
barrels) the peak will be somewhere between 2030
and 2075. This means that the raw material for
fibres will change.
An even more important problem with the use of
fossil energy is the huge translocation of carbon
from the ground into the atmosphere accompanied
by emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides as
well as all kinds of hydrocarbons, and heavy
metals. Fossil fuels are also the dominant global
source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG).
Of even more concern is the ability of polymeric
fibres to remain unchanged in the environment as
polymers do not degrade very readily, which has
exacerbated the already existing ecological and
environmental problems of waste building; the
volume in waste disposal and landfill is very
high.
Chap. 1. Microbial processes in the degradation
of fibers, by P.M. Fedorak, University of Alberta:
A fiber is the basic element of fabrics and other
textile structure. A fiber is typically defined
as a material having a length at least 100 times
its diameter. These can be natural, such as
cellulose or wool, or synthetic, such as nylon. A
textile is any product made from fibers. Š
Of course, natural fibers like wool and cotton
are broken down through biotic process.
Microorganisms have evolved enzymes that attack
key bonds in these natural polymers, thereby
releasing monomers that can be used as carbon and
energy sources for microbial growth. In contrast,
microorganisms lack enzymes to break down many
synthetic fibers, thus these materials persist
and accumulate in the environment.
Chap. 9. Biodegradable natural fiber composites,
by A.N. Netravalli, Cornell University:
Most of the fibers and resins currently available
on the market are derived from petroleum. There
are two major problems associated with using
petroleum as feedstock for polymers. First, it is
a non-renewable (non-sustainable) resource and at
the current rate of consumption, by some
estimates, it is expected to last for only 50-60
years. Also the current petroleum consumption
rate is estimated to be 100,000 times the rate of
natural generation rate.(17) Second, most fibers
and resins, made using petroleum are
non-degradable. Although this is desirable in
many applications from the durability point of
view, at the end of their life, they are not easy
to dispose of.
Notes:
1) reusablebags.com keeps statistics on plastic
bag use. See also
http://www.discountbiodegradablebags.co.uk for
information on bio-"plastic" created from organic
sources such as plants, as opposed to
"traditional" plastics produced from inorganic
and non-renewable sources: oil.
2) By 'bagging it,' Ireland rids itself of a
plastic nuisance, by Elisabeth Rosenthal,
International Herald Tribune, Jan. 31, 2008.
3) Complementing an excellent article, Plastic
bags are killing us, by Katherine Mieszkowski,
for Salon.com, Aug. 10, 2007, is a video tour of
San Francisco's Norcal Recycling with a quote
from the manager, "They're made from oil. How
much more do you need to hear?"
4) An interesting book on how long everything
would take to break down and biodegrade (or not,
in the case of plastics) is The World Without Us,
by Alan Weisman, 2007.
5) See for example, Continent-size toxic stew of
plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean, San
Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 19, 2007, and Floating,
Texas-sized garbage patch threatens Pacific
marine sanctuary, ARS Technica, Oct. 23, 2007,
which includes an inventory of the waste. While
much plastic in the ocean eventually fouls
beaches where it can be collected, the Pacific
gyre highlights the importance of waste
management for plastics.
6) According to the action plan of the Plastic
Debris, Rivers to Sea Project, about 100 million
tons of plastic are produced each year of which
about 10% ends up in the sea where about 70%
sinks to the bottom. Fully 80% of the ocean's
litter originated on land. This has similarities
to pollution drift first noted by the Arctic
Monitoring and Assessment Programme.
7) "In the last few years the Republic of Ireland
declared that they no longer had any space for
landfill, imposing large taxes on the use and
disposal of polymers." From the introduction to
Biodegradable and sustainable fibres, edited by
R.S. Blackburn, Woodhead Publishing, 2005.
8) No one appears to be counting the billions of
plush toys now being sold, including by zoos,
aquariums and even green groups that should know
better! Shouldn't products bearing conservation
messages come from ntural fibers that are
renewable and biodegradable?
9) The yield is three synthetic jackets per
gallon of oil. To its credit, in 2005 Patagonia,
Inc., one of the world's largest producers of
synthetic clothing which it has long promoted as
eco-friendly, started a recycling program to
collect discarded garments at its stores and
recycle them into more clothing products. The
bulk of Patagonia's clothing is made from
recovered plastic soda bottles (another oil
product) which are not biodegradable and hence
its products are not biodegradable.
10) This and the following statistics are from
Summary report: Sustainable clothing roadmap
stakeholder meeting & next steps, Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Sept. 5,
2007.
11) Most of the recovered stream is exported for
reuse overseas, Africa being the main market.
12) The synthetic clothing industry is
encountering "feedstock problems". In other
words, the raw material, oil, has become more
expensive. See for example, Prices of
petrochemical feedstock and synthetic fibres and
filaments in the first half of 2004, Fibre
Chemistry, Sept. 2004.
13) Should you be faking it? Are you wearing fake
fur and feeling just a tiny bit smug? Daily Mail,
Nov. 22, 2004.
14) The US military has banned the wearing of
synthetic clothing off base in Iraq due to
serious burn injuries since such clothing melts,
just like plastic, when soldiers are injured. See
Synthetic clothes off limits to Marines outside
bases in Iraq, American Forces Press Service,
Apr. 12, 2006.
15) Personal communication between Diane DeZan of
the Fiber Economics Bureau and Joe Casola of ICF
Consulting, Aug. 4, 2000, as cited in Inventory
of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990
- 2001, Environmental Protection Agency, Apr. 15,
2003.
16) Fur garments are made from leather treated
lightly (dressed) to retain the hair, and with
proper care can last for generations. They are
also restyled or recycled, such as through
FCUSA's Furry Friends program, which transforms
surplus furs into charitable donations. If this
is no longer feasible, they can be composted, and
are included in "o.k. to compost" lists such as
this one from Home & Garden TV, and will
biodegrade back into the Earth. (Petrochemical
synthetics cannot be composted and will simply
pollute your garden's soil.)
17) Stevens, E.S., Green Plastics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002.
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