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# The truth about ‘bio-degradable’ plastic bags
- URL: https://goodoil.news/the-truth-about-bio-degradable-plastic-bags/
- Published: 2019-05-02T22:30:14.000Z
- Updated: 2019-05-02T08:03:20.000Z
- Author: WH
- Tags: #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 04:14

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/31/f4/31f4e20a-0315-499e-83ff-139e8eab53bf/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bio_degradablebag.gif)

Our new and improved environmental saviour of the turtles and whales, the bio-degradable plastic bag apparently is not. Nor does the compostable bag compost that well. Oh dear!

Greenpeace got the west all stirred up over “single-use” plastic bags and had them banned. So the enlightened switched to bio-degradable and compostable bags to save the planet.

Unfortunately, according to a study from University of Plymouth published in Environmental Science and Technology, all is not as promised. The abstract of the paper reads:

quote.

> There is clear evidence that discarded single-use carrier bags are accumulating in the environment.   
>  
> As a result, various plastic formulations have been developed which state they deteriorate faster and/or have fewer impacts on the environment because their persistence is shorter.   
>  
> This study examined biodegradable, oxo-biodegradable, compostable, and high-density polyethylene (i.e., a conventional plastic carrier bag) materials over a 3 year period.

> These materials were exposed in three natural environments; open-air, buried in soil, and submersed in seawater, as well as in controlled laboratory conditions.   
>  
> In the marine environment, the compostable bag completely disappeared within 3 months. However, the same compostable bag type was still present in the soil environment after 27 months but could no longer hold weight without tearing.   
>  
> After 9 months exposure in the open-air, all bag materials had disintegrated into fragments.   
>  
> Collectively, our results showed that none of the bags could be relied upon to show any substantial deterioration over a 3 year period in all of the environments.   
>  
> It is therefore not clear that the oxo-biodegradable or biodegradable formulations provide sufficiently advanced rates of deterioration to be advantageous in the context of reducing marine litter, compared to conventional bags.

end quote.
  
  
[ACS Publications](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b06984?ref=goodoil.news)

  
The lead researcher Imogen Napper said that she was really amazed that any of the bags could still hold a load of shopping after three years.

I guess that is a fail, then. Can we have our useful plastic bags back, please?

The approved *Whaleoil* suggestion is to be a tidy Kiwi and to not discard any bag into the environment, be it single-use, paper, multi-use, bio-degradable, compostable or Louis Vuitton.