Q: What is the point of biodegradable goods?

[Earth2melly]

Ok so I'm all for recycling, post consumer goods, organics etc. But something I dont understand is "biodegradable goods" that will eventually become trash, that will be put in land fills. Arent land fills lined with plastic first? Not mixed with soil or anything? How is something going to break down when its mixed up with all this other unbiodegradable crap? And if it does, what is the point? It's not going to lessen the damage, will it? Please enlighten me

[Unkle_John]

This website (http://www.explainthatstuff.com/bioplastics.html) may or may not answer some of those questions.

As to why one or the other, I want to say it was due to many variables. Take for instance, someone like me. I live in a rural town that has no recycling program. I won't go into the specifics on trying to get one started and such, but for this explanation, let's just say they have no plans in it.

So in order for us to recycle, we personally have to sort our trash and place them in some sort of container and transport it ourselves to the nearest recycle plant. In my area, they only accept metals, glass, cardboard (i think), and rubber tires (again, I think). But they don't take plastic, intentionally. In my case this recycle plant is mainly for industrial or large amounts of scrap, the only thing they have that's easily accessible for the regular person is the aluminum can collection area. Oh and this nearest recycle plant is 45 miles away. Yeah, we are rural. It's not uncommon for people to burn their trash outside the city limits. In our town, I'm sure we are the 1% who who recycles.

We (my wife and I) try our best to buy products with less packaging and reuse alot of the containers that we get. I keep all glass jars to be reused for non food storage (art projects, screws/nails, etc.), and we keep alot of the plastic bottles (for used cooking oil, fresh fruit juice, etc.). Now let me say that we thoroughly clean out plastic and glass, especially if it's going to be used for consumable items.We try our best to only have to take trash out at least once a month. We also compost all proper organic material in the back of the property.

Now, in this case, if I was to buy something that was made intentionally biodegradable (like bio-plastic), I would feel less conscious about placing it in the trash. Mainly because bio-plastic is made to disintegrate faster than normal petroleum based plastics. When trash is taken to a legal city dump, the trash is ground up as much as it can be by the special wheels of the bulldozer. This is to ensure that the trash has a better chance of being shredded as it's being compacted into the pit. A lot of that stuff is mixed with soil to help speed up the decomposition of the waste products.

I'm not an expert on city dumps and the such, just rattling off what I know.
Hope that kinda helped.

[CowboyHippy]

i live in michigan
we get a bunch of canadian trash

I used to blame the governer (who is canadian and doing a fairly horrible job at everything) till i found out the international trash was federally regulated and try as we may the powerhouses in Washington are to powerful for my starving, dying state.

[Earth2melly]

Thanks, that makes alot of sense. :)

[Crochety Carpenter]

BTW, many municipal landfills are "farming" thier landfills for natural gas with great success. This is facilitated by biodegradables. However compost and recycle on... I do. :hippie:

[yugogypsy]

Hi Gang,

Up here we have:

A) Curbside recycling pick-up of certain recyclables

B)Recycling bins at strategic locations for glass and other things that they don't pick up

C) A Recycle-It depot that takes old TV's etc

D) at our dump they've put in a free store where you can drop stuff off.

So we have it a little better.

I myself am please that at least they do have biodegrdable goods after the total plastic mania we've endured for many years.

Recently most grocery stores here have gone back to paper bags or biodegradable bags and they sell cloth bags as well.

I am planning to make bags this coming winter for my roadside stand, actually we'll ALL probably work on that project, we 3 here all can sew.

(Even if our grammar is lousy)

The one thing that irks me is that we don't have recycling for styrofoam here on the Island and one type of plastic.

So the styrofoam ends up in the landfill even though they could have a separate bin and send it to the mainland for recycling, they already send the plastics!

That makes no sense to me. But on the bright side, I know the guy in charge of recycling at our local Regional District office;) (like your county offices)

I'll have a word with him and see if I can create some change.

Lois

[Pedata]

What we have is very little. We do have a "green" trash company now. Well, their truck is green... Unlike the old trash company, that took everything and sorted it out, this new company won't take everything. They want us to haul off the non-takable stuff and pay to get rid of it. This is the country and many are laughing at the new trash company. And many are throwing junk in ravines and ditches.
They also put people out of work. A full crew is not required with the new trash company. One driver who works a big metal claw to pick up and empty the bins, that's it.
I do like having bins, tho. Gone are the days of hoping the trash truck showed up before the dogs got to the bags and tore them open.

I don't consider this company "green" in any way. They're just tightwads with fancy equipment and a bunch of ticky rules.

-Cass