Biodegradable Products and Attractive Misinformation

The terms biodegradable, degradable and compostable are a frequent occurrence in our daily lives as waste management evolves and help with us to properly dispose of waste. But what do these terms actually mean?

Biodegradable

Let's keep it simple. Biodegradable products must be able to break down when in the presence of microorganisms, fungi, or bacteria.

In their optimum temperature and moisture conditions, the enzymes present will begin the substance breakdown process.

Picture your compost bin. Warm, moist, and full of little living things. It's a party in there for all things biodegradable.

But without these conditions, degradation can take far longer.

For instance, paper takes only 2-5 months to biodegrade in the correct conditions, and yet there are instances where newspapers in landfills take years to breakdown.

This can be traced back to the poor oxygen and organism levels in landfills.

Found a 50-year-old newspaper in landfill? Don't worry. Still readable. 

It's not big news that some materials are naturally biodegradable. Sure, the expected ones we both immediately picture like paper, plants, human and animal waste. But things like wool, cotton, oils, leather, and metals are considered naturally biodegradable too. 

And, hey! Some synthetically made materials can biodegrade too. 

In the right conditions, synthetically made materials can biodegrade in waste management facilities. Biodegradable plastics and foams are becoming widely used to manufacture certain products like plastic straws, plastic plates, plastic or foam cups and plastic cutlery.

Detergents and washing liquids are also quickly becoming biodegradable, which is great for our waterways and environment. Restock’s own brand of chemicals, Eurosan, is an industry leader in the space.

Degradable

Surprise! Almost everything can be considered degradable.

There are two primary ways for degradation to occur.

For something to degrade it must be able to break down either biologically or chemically.

Biologically Occurring Degradation

Biologically occurring degradation is not the same as biodegradable degradation, which requires the presence of microorganisms, fungi, or bacteria. Instead, conditions of heat, sunlight and/or moisture are all that is required for this breakdown process to succeed.

Chemically occurring degradation requires a variety of synthetic chemicals and substances to breakdown the chemical structures of degradable waste.

The most common materials that experience biological degradation are plastic, glass, rubber and tin or aluminium cans. Plastic can take up to 500 years to completely breakdown, creating a secondary issue wherein slowly degrading plastics turn into microplastics and eventually become nano plastics.

Microplastics are plastic fragments of tiny sizes between 0.1 μm (micrometre) to 5 mm. They are becoming a considerable issue in waterways and oceans wherein they are then consumed by marine life, often creating fatal clogs of their digestive tracts.

Nano plastics have a dimension of between 0.001–0.1 μm and are shown to be a particular safety concern.

Research reports nano plastics as having penetrated human cells and finding them occurring in blood results.

In fight against this, plastic waste management has quickly become an important industry to not only remain sustainable or environmentally friendly, but to dispose of waste safely. One waste management degradation method becoming increasingly popular for plastics and rubbers is incineration. This not only prevents the chance of micro and nano plastics in the environment, but also generates an energy source. This method allows us to leverage the disposal of plastic waste and convert it into electricity.