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PVA plastic

by Posted in 1.3 Plastic Types - Fact Sheets Tagged 4 Comments

Here is an oil derived plastic that actually dissolves in water, is biodegradable and has been certified compostable. Interesting stuff.

The following is a collection of information that really needs to be properly collated.

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVOH, PVA, or PVAl) is a water-soluble synthetic polymer. It has the idealized formula [CH2CH(OH)]n. It is used in papermaking, textiles, and a variety of coatings. It is white (colourless) and odorless. It is sometimes supplied as beads or as solutions in water.[2] wikkipedia

PVA is produced through multiple chemical reactions. However, the starting compound is ethylene gas. So, where does ethylene gas come from? Well it is actually produced by some plants when their fruit ripens. It can also be produced from ethanol. These methods are just too expensive for commercial production. So, it’s made from you guessed it oil. However, it is able to be broken down by some types of bacteria making it biodegradable.

PVA (Polyvinyl alcohol) the plastic that’s afraid of water

This is to confirm that Flushpuppies pet-waste bags are produced by BPI-approved manufacturers from BPI-certified materials. These products are authorized to carry the BPI Compostable Logo (shown on the right) because they meet all of the requirements
of ASTM D6400 or ASTM D6868: they will disintegrate and biodegrade swiftly and safely in a professionally managed composting facility and not leave behind any non-compostable residues. http://flushpuppies.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2014-New-BPI-letter-Flush-Puppies.pdf

PVA films are used for packages that release their contents upon contacting water. Some brands of sanitizers, dyes, and detergents are packaged in dissolving plastic bags. PVA film has recently found a new use in agriculture. At high concentrations, some pesticides and herbicides can be toxic to humans. Farmers typically purchase concentrated chemicals, then mix them with water to prepare the dilute solutions that are applied to crops. Powdered insecticides and herbicides prepackaged in PVA bags are simply dropped into a container of water, and the farmer is never exposed to the powder. http://www.borlik.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dissolving-Plastic.pdf

Uses

Polyvinyl alcohol laundry bags are used in hospitals to minimize the contact hospital workers have with contaminated clothing and bedding. Dirty items are put into these special bags, which are then placed directly into the washing machine. Because polyvinyl alcohol is soluble in water, the bags dissolve and are washed down the drain with the dirty water. At the completion of the washing cycle, the clean clothes are removed from the washing machine

This was taken from a website selling the product.

Environmental Friendly characteristic
It has no any bad effect on environment. Once PVA is dissolved in water, specific microorganism will cause it to degrade. When treated with activated sludge, solutions of PVA will be decomposed into water and carbon dioxide.

Water solubility

1.Solubility is related to PVA film’s thickness and temperature. According the time of dissolving, the film has three types, quick, middle, difficult, all depend on its thickness and water temperature. Thicker film makes slow dissolving, high temperature makes fast dissolving.
Water soluble pva film can prevent operators from contacting toxic materials directly.It is safer and more convenient.

Water content

Water content of the water-soluble PVA film can change with environmental humidity. The water-soluble PVA films are usually sealed with the PE film to keep its water content invariable. After the water-soluble PVA films is taken out of the PE film, water content can vary from environmental humidity, whose property also varies with it.

Good gas barrier properties

Water-soluble PVA film has an excellent gas barrier to oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, helium, argon, carbonic acid gas and so on when the humidity is low, but it permit moisture and NH 3 to penetrate . Moreover, it has an excellent fragrance preservation of the contents and can keep products moisture and fresh as well.

Good antistatic properties

Because water-soluble film has a lot of hydroxyl groups in molecule, it does not take charges. It is different from the film that is made from the other synthetic resins and it has the same antistatic properties as cellophane. If PVA film is used for product packing, it could keep products out of dust.

Good printability

Water-soluble PVA film has the h3 polarity and the excellent printability so as to gravure print is beautifully completed without spark-treatment. Presently it has been widely used in the field of special printing, for example, water transfer printing.

Strength and Weathering resistance

PVA film has good tenacity, biaxial tension-strength and anti-tearing strength that ranks high among all kinds of films, flexing resistance is 10 times to other films. It has excellent Weathering resistance and service life is very long.

Good heat sealability and adhesiveness

Water-soluble PVA film has an excellent gas barrier to oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, helium, argon, carbonic acid gas and so on when the humidity is low, but it permit moisture and NH 3 to penetrate . Moreover, it has an excellent fragrance preservation of the contents and can keep products moisture and fresh as well.

Resistance to oil and chemicals

The Water-soluble PVA film has the good characteristic to resist the oils and fats such as animal oils, vegetable oils, mineral oils, fats, organic solvents and the hydrocarbons to penetrate. However, it can be affected by h3 acid, h3 base, chlorine free radical and some special chemical which can react with PVA such as borax, boracic acid and coloring matter and so on, so it isn’t fit for packing the above things.

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Polyethylene / Polythene

by Posted in 1.3 Plastic Types - Fact Sheets Tagged ,
  • is the most common plastic.
  • the annual global production of polythene is approximately 80 million tonnes.
  • it is an ethane derived plastic.

Ethane isone of the byproducts of oil refining.
It can be isolated from natural gas,
It can be derived from plants.but most is made from petroleum or natural gas.

Ethene is one of the raw materials used to make polyethylene (abbreviated PE) (IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)

Types of polythene

  • High-density polyethylene (HDPE)
  • Cross-linked polyethylene (PEX or XLPE)
  • Medium-density polyethylene (MDPE)
  • Linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE)
  • Low-density polyethylene (LDPE)
  • Very-low-density polyethylene (VLDPE)

High-density polyethylene  HDPE Plastic code 2

Used to make supermarket type carrier bags, chemical drums, jerricans, carboys, toys, picnic ware, household and kitchenware, cable insulation, plastic milk cartons, juice bottles, shampoo bottles, and liquid detergent containers.

It is tough and can withstand exposure to sunlight and extremes of temperature.

Products made of HDPE are reusable.

Recycling

HDPE is the most commonly recycled plastic and is a relatively simple and cost-effective process to recycle HDPE plastic for secondary use.

Polythene bags can be recycled through the supermarket carrier bag recycling schemes. Sainsburys even print this fact on their packaging – I saw it on their grapes the other day.

If you don’t live near a supermarket (!) with a recycling scheme, then you can send the bags to this company who run a recycling scheme.

New technology allows HDPE to be recycled into new milk bottles.

LDPE (Low density polyethylene) plastic code 4

used to make soft clear bags for packing of vegetables some bread and frozen food bags, trash cans, and garbage can liners. Also used to make toys and clothes, dispensing bottles, wash bottles, tubing, molded laboratory equipment and corrosion-resistant work surfaces.

Parts that need to be weldable and machinable, parts that require flexibility, computer components, such as hard drives, screen cards and disk-drives are all made from LDPE.

It is considered less toxic than other plastics.

It is not commonly recycled yet but recycling possibilities are ever increasing.

Does Not Biodegrade…… or maybe it does

Polyethylene (PE) has been considered nonbiodegradable for decades. Although the biodegradation of PE by bacterial cultures has been occasionally described, valid evidence of PE biodegradation has remained limited in the literature. We found that waxworms, or Indian mealmoths (the larvae of Plodia interpunctella), were capable of chewing and eating PE films.

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Rubber

by Posted in 1.3 Plastic Types - Fact Sheets Tagged , ,

There are two major categories of rubber; natural and synthetic. The most popular compounds are;

Natural Rubber
Vulcanised Rubber
Synthetic

History

Thousands of years BC Indians living in Central and South America were using latex to makewaterproof clothes and shoes using latex from rubber trees.

It was unknown in Europe until 1731when French explorer Charles Marie de La Condamine sent back samples of rubber to Europe. It was put to a variety of uses In 1770 Joseph Priestley found he could use pieces of rubber to erase pencil marks.

Others used it to waterproof cloth a series of discoveries that eventually led to Charles Macintosh inventing and patenting the rubberized, waterproof coat or macintosh. But it wasnt until 1839 when American inventor Charles Goodyear discovered how to vulcanize rubber that it really came into its own.

Natural Rubber

also called Latex or Para

Natural rubber is made from latex
Latex is the white liquid that oozes from certain plants when you cut into them.There are around 200 plants in the world that produce latex including dandilions.
99 percent of natural rubber comes from a tree called Hevea brasiliensis, or the rubber tree.

  • Though it’s sometimes mistaken as the sap of the Hevea tree, latex actuality runs through ducts in a layer just outside the cambium below the tree’s bark.
  • The rubber tree originates from South America.
  • 90% of all natural rubber comes from these trees grown in rubber plantations mainly found in Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula and Sri Lanka.
  • This type of rubber is often called Para rubber.

However by itself, unprocessed natural rubber is not all that useful. It tends to be brittle when cold and smelly and sticky when it warms up.

So it is combined with a range of addatives to give it added strength and flexibility.

The tough rubber used for tyres and such like has been further processed or vulcanised.

Vulcanised Rubber

Latex is filtered, washed, and reacted with acid to make the particles of rubber stick together.
Mastication machines “chew up” raw rubber using mechanical rollers and presses to make it softer, easier to work, and more sticky.
Addatives chemical ingredients are mixed in to improve its properties (for example, to make it more hardwearing).
Next, the rubber is squashed into shape by rollers (a process called calendering) or squeezed through specially shaped holes to make hollow tubes (a process known as extrusion).

Finally, the rubber is vulcanized (cooked): sulfur is added and the rubber is heated to about 140°C (280°F).

Biodegradable?

Latex when made from rubber trees a natural sounds like it should be biodegradable. Which has led to claims that that non-vulcanised products like latex condoms and other products  are.

This is hotly debated!
Most latex products contain addatives to make them (amongst other things) stronger. It all depends on wether they are biodegradable or not.

While many people say that simple rubber products people  do eventually decompose, (not proven),  it takes such a long time as to make any claims of biodegradability  misleading.Certainly the anti-balloon camp do not consider latex balloons to be biodegradable despite what the balloon industry say.

And yet this….

  • Very thin rubber products, such as balloons and condoms, will degrade naturally especially if they are subjected to natural sunlight. As is evident from the problems which are associated with sealing rings natural rubber is capable of being biodegraded. It should be possible to compost thin rubber articles
  • In a composting environment, biodegradation rates over 24 weeks were twice that compared to the fertilized treatment in soils. Degradation of natural rubber condoms in soil was slower compared to gloves with 42% of the initial weights remaining after 48 weeks. In contrast, the manufactured polyurethane condoms were hardly biodegradable.

Read more here

It is possible to buy natural latex foam rubber. For example
100% Natural Latex, Pure Comfort, Talalay rubber not foam, offering maximum comfort and luxury, available in Soft, Medium or Firm.read more here. I

and latex sheets like these

Both of the above have been described as biodegradable.

However vulcanised rubber generally is not. Though there are some suggestions that it may eventually biodegrade more research needs to be done.

Synthetic rubber on the other hand is not biodegradable.

Synthetic Rubber

Is produced primarily from petrochemicals by a chemical process known as polymerisation. You can read about polymers and polymerisation here.

Synthetic rubbers

Including
* SBR
* Neoprene
* Hypalon
* Nitrile
* Butyl
* EPDM
* Silicone
* Viton

Polychloroprene
Polyurethane

SBR – Styrene-butadiene or styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) describe families of synthetic rubbers derived from styrene and butadiene (the version developed by Goodyear is called Neolite). These materials have good abrasion resistance and good aging stability when protected by additives.

Neoprene the brand name for polychloroprene often used for dive suits

Butyl rubber,
is gas-impermeable,
is commonly used for inner tubes.
Most modern chewing gum uses food-grade butyl rubber as the central gum base.
The raw materials for making butyl rubber are isobutylene and isoprene. These two components are polymerized at -100 °C

Poly(styrene-butadiene-styrene), or SBS, is a hard rubber that’s used for things like the soles of shoes, tire treads, and other places where durability is important. It’s a type of copolymer called a block copolymer. Its backbone chain is made up of three segments. The first is a long chain of polystyrene, the middle is a long chain of polybutadiene, and the last segment is another long section of polystyrene.

Silicone – read up here

High Quality Rubber Coated Textiles
Also known as technical coated textiles or rubber proofed fabrics, rubber coated textiles grant rubber characteristics to a wide variety of fabrics and materials.
We are able to coat fabrics with a wide variety of rubber compounds, some of the most popular compounds are;
* Natural Rubber
* SBR
* Neoprene
* Hypalon
* Nitrile
* Butyl
* EPDM
* Silicone
* Viton
* Polyurethane

More

Read more about the different types of plastic here

Why This Post Is ….

A little bit rubbish. You are reading a work in progress. Here’s how the blog is written and why we post half cocked.

 

And before you go…

If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project (read more here) or

Price of a cup of tea  – micro fund me  here 
  • N.B.
    lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x
Join our Facebook group here

Recycling & Reusing Plastic – an introduction

by Posted in 1.51 Reusing & Recycling Plastic, 5 Blog Social Media & Map Tagged

This post is an introduction to recycling and reusing plastic non-biodegradable plastic at end of life. (also see Plastic Lifespan and Disposing Of Plastic ).

They include
Recycling
Transformation
Reuse

Recycling, Transforming & Reusing Plastic

Introduction.

What does recycling mean? Seems a simple enough question but I have seen the term recycled plastic used for everything from the mechanical melting down of waste plastic  to make a new products, to crafting lampshades out of milk bottles. Rather more controversially, it is also used to describe the process of burning plastic trash in waste incinerators and using the heat to produce electricity. The argument being that the plastic trash is recycled as electricity.

In the USA, Recycling is defined as “Using waste as material to manufacture a new product. Recycling involves altering the physical form of an object or material and making a new object from the altered material.”

Burning is called Transformation, which “refers to incineration, pyrolysis, distillation, or biological conversion other than composting.” They are very different things.” As quoted from Treehugger
You  can add to that
Reuse – when the original product is reused in a different way.
Recrafted or upcycling is the cottage industry version of the above.

N.B. Let’s be clear about this recycling is just a more responsible form of waste management. That stuff in your recycle bin is still rubbish and has to be dealt with the attendant environmental and financial costs. While recycling may offset these costs it is still expensive. Moreover recycling does not address the main issue of misusing plastic and stupidly using it to make one use throwaway items. The best waste is no waste.

Recycling Plastic

Resin identification code 2 ♴ for high density...

Recycling is altering the physical form of an object or material and making a new object from the altered material.

There are many different types of plastic. It is important to know what they are when recycling.  Most plastics are marked with a plastic code  or a number identifying the type of plastic. This information is used by recyclers.
Mechanical Recycling – very simply, consists of melting down the old plastic and using it to make new products.

Chemical recycling where plastics are actually dissolved back into their original chemical components. These are then cleaned up and reused to make new plastics 

Recycling in the U.K.

Recycled Plastic Products can be found here 5.21 Recycled Plastic Products

Transformation 

Plastic to Energy 5.4 plastic To energy

Reuse & Recrafting Waste Plastic

Reuse – when the original product is reused in a different way. Like shredding trainers down into playing field surfacing. Find some great ideas over here 5.4 Plastic trash reused

Recrafted or upcycling is the cottage industry version of the above. Have a look at what these talented folk have done over in the arty crafty part of this blog   2.2 Plastic Crafts and check out my PINTEREST board. Lovely but by no means the answer.

Recycling is greenwashing ?

The focus of this blog is the plastic rubbish created by our addiction to disposable products. As a result I sometimes sound dismissive of recycling. While it certainly has a role to play, and is better then the alternative ways of disposing of plastic, it IS NOT solution for overconsumption of plastic. Recycling does not address the main issue of misusing plastic and stupidly using it to make one use throwaway items. Just because a product can be recycled (or upcycled), is no reason to create plastic rubbish.

Recycling and Reusing waste plastic – a discussion

The best response to plastic trash is to  REFUSE IT and find a compostable alternative.

All recycled plastic posts

Kedel Recycled Plastics

The Problems Presented By Plastic Misuse & How To Combat Them  Today plastics dominate our lives. We use a shocking ...
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Recycled Plastic Lumber

Plastic lumber is often the end product of the plastics (mechanical) recycling chain. Which may go as follows Virgin PET ...
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Swimwear Recycled

Well my Decathlon, unsustainable boy shorts have finally fallen apart and it is time to source some new, more ethical ...
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Whats that dot mean?

The Green Dot is a symbol used on packaging in many European countries. It looks like a recycling logo but ...
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Chemical Recycling

Chemical Recycling Another way to recycle plastics, is chemically. Here plastics are actually dissolved back into their original chemical components. These ...
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boat powered by rubbish

Ocean Ambassadors Mr Midwood and Take Three, Tim Silverwood sailed into town in a boat powered by trash. "We put solid ...
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Recycling plastic on the high seas…

Ahoy there me hearties! Have I got a project for you! These Uk designers trawl the beaches for plastic which ...
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Recycling & Reusing Plastic – an introduction

This post is an introduction to recycling and reusing plastic non-biodegradable plastic at end of life. (also see Plastic Lifespan and ...
Read More

Gasification

Gasification heats the waste with little or no oxygen in order to produce a chemical reaction. The waste does not ...
Read More

Incineration

Incineration is to dispose of waste materials by burning them. The end results are heat, ash and gases. High-temperature waste treatment systems ...
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Carpets

"The chemicals used in the manufacturing of carpet, interior furnishings and building materials may release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) through ...
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Recycle your own plastic…

Just read this article in Recycle Reminders  about Dutch designer Dave Hakkens. He has just gone and made himself a plastic ...
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Recycling… a post code lottery

I knew that council recycling provision and services varied across the UK but while I have been abroad, it seems ...
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Which plastics are collected for recycling in the UK

Please bear in mind that plastic recycling is a fast moving world with new advances being made all the time ...
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recycling rates down this year

...oh dear - NOT going to meet the 2020 targets and waste creation on the rise. It's one hell of ...
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Recycling Information on your products

Why so much information on my box of chocks? Well several materials have gone into packing those bad boys. The ...
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Some U.K. Recycling Stats

Here are a few statistic to whet your appetite. There are plenty more throughout the blog. Our previous work had ...
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Plastic recycling – the law

This is the law relating the use of plastic. I'll leave you to judge how well it is being applied ...
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Terracycle Recycling Scheme

It is almost impossible these days to buy unwrapped plastic free biscuit unless you live in Huddersfield where you can ...
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Upcycling floppy discs

Is this a bit bonkers? Or incredibly sweet? Floppy discs (who still has those?) into planters. From recycle Uk Facebook ...
Read More

 

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Cellophane – a plant derived and biodegradable plastic

by Posted in 1.3 Plastic Types - Fact Sheets Tagged , , , 2 Comments

Quick Introduction

Cellophane is made from cellulose
It is biodegradable
However the way it is made results in a lot of other kinds of pollution
Cellophane bags were often used to package candy, vegetables and convenience foods.
Cellophane is  easy to tear, reseal and print.
It performs badly  at low temperatures and has a limited shelf life
Cellophane is more expensive than most other types of plastic.
“polypropylene has replaced cellophane to a large degree. For a while cellophane and polypropylene were used in conjunction, thus a ply of cellophane was laminated to a ply of propylene. Now, however, cellophane is mostly abandoned altogether.” Read more here.
Cellotape used to be made from cellophane. now it is made from oil derived plastic.

Find out more about compostable and other types of plastic here

Current Uses

Cellophane is now being used to wrap “green” products because it can be composted. Here are the PLA cornstarch and cellulose compostable plastic products I have composted in my back yard bin. They said it couldn’t be done Mwahahahaha! Read more here.

The History Of Cellophane, how it is made and the pros and cons A guest post from Michael Bloch blogging up on Green Living Tips.com

We see many news stories about developments in the plastics industry to make these items greener. With disposable plastic shopping bags being banned in some places and consumer concern acting as the writing on the wall for the industry, it’s certainly in the sector’s interest to make more environmentally friendly plastic bag and wrap products as soon as possible.

Degradable, compostable and biodegradable plastics may seem like recent inventions, but some have been around for a very long time. One such plastic is cellophane – and it’s now experiencing resurgence in popularity.

Cellophane being plant based didn’t click with me until I was doing some research recently for a restaurant employee who was looking for a biodegradable bag suitable for use with a particular food application – it was only then that it clicked with me the “cello” in cellophane stands for cellulose – the structural component of plants.

Cellophane was invented in 1900, but wasn’t commercially available until 1912. At that point it was mainly used for wrapping candy. When moisture-proof cellophane hit the market in the late 1920′s, it rapidly increased in popularity until the 60′s when alternative petro-chemical based plastics became popular – and we all know how that worked out for the planet.

Quite a few modern bioplastics use plants, but often they use corn as the primary component. Similar to using “food as fuel“; should we be using a grain or a crop grown on land suitable for producing food for non-food uses when arable land (without further deforestation) is becoming a diminishing resource?

Cellophane has an edge here as it can be made from farmed trees or from hemp; which can grow in relatively harsh conditions.

Regarding its composting and biodegradable attributes, I’ve read various reports stating uncoated cellulose film degrades within 10 days to 1 month when buried and nitrocellulose-coated cellulose in 2 months to 3 months. Complete biodegradation of cellulose film is between 1 – 2 months for uncoated products, and from 2.5 to 4 months for coated cellulose products. In a fresh water environment, the rate of biodegradation is only 10 days for uncoated film and a month for coated cellulose film.

As far as I know, corn based bioplastics take far longer to degrade and there’s also some issues with recycling bioplastics made with corn as they are currently classified as a number 7 plastic resin, meaning “other”.

That’s the good news about cellophane; but as with most things, there are some negative aspects too environmentally speaking.

Cellophane is made by dissolving plant fiber in alkali and carbon disulfide to create something called viscose. The viscose is then reconverted to cellulose in cellophane form after a sulfuric acid and sodium sulfate bath. The cellophane is  further treated with glycerol to make the dry cellophane less brittle. The cellophane may then be coated with nitrocellulose or wax to make it impermeable to water vapor. A few nasty chemicals in that process – for example, high levels of carbon disulfide are toxic; affecting the nervous system.

However, given the amount of processing and nasties it takes to turn petro-chemicals; i.e. chemicals derived from crude oil, into plastics and the damage those plastics do long after having been discarded, it would seem to me that cellophane is probably still better environmentally speaking. Stacked up against corn based plastic bags and wraps, the better/worse distinction is a little harder to discern.

Cellophane films and bags are readily available – just run a query on the terms in your favorite search engine to locate a stockist.

Tip: When composting cellophane, scrunch it up instead of laying it flat on your compost pile. This allows for air pockets and some air is necessary when composting any material.

Trivia: another plastic product that’s been around for at least a hundred years also based on plant material is linoleum.

N.B.

lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x

And before you go…

If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project (read more here) or

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

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Perfluorochemicals and plastic

by Posted in 1.4 Additives Fact Sheets Tagged , , 1 Comment

Perfluorochemicals (PFCs) are a family of man-made chemicals.
They have been around since the 1950s.
They include
perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS; C8F17SO3),
perfluorobutane sulfonate ( PFBS; C4F9C03),
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA; C8F15O2H),
perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA; C4F7O2H), and
perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS; C6F13SO3).
They are hydrophobic (water-repelling), and oleophobic (oil-repelling).

They are used

  • as a surface coating for paper and cardboard they make them water and grease resistant and so suitable for packaging processed foods.
  • on carpets,leather products and textiles to make them stain resistant and waterproof.
  • in non stick coatings on cookware and pans.

They are added to some plastics.

They do not break down easily and can last in the enironment for years.

They have been found in both soil and water.

When they enter the food chain they are retained in animal tissue leading to a process called biomagnification, meaning that they are passed on up the foodchain from animal to animal and because they are stored in the body for years the amount increases exponentially as they travel up the food chain.

Recent studies have found perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in human serum.

Human studies have been done for a number of years in workers exposed to high levels of PFCs. These studies have not found consistent effects on health.

Read more here

Gasification

by Posted in 1.51 Reusing & Recycling Plastic Tagged

Gasification heats the waste with little or no oxygen in order to produce a chemical reaction. The waste does not burn rather the chemical reaction produces synthetic gases.

These can be burned to turn a turbine, which spins a generator and creates electricity.

As yet gasification technologies have ‘to reach an acceptable (positive) gross electric efficiency. The high efficiency of converting syngas to electric power is counteracted by significant power consumption in the waste preprocessing, the consumption of large amounts of pure oxygen (which is often used as gasification agent), and gas cleaning.”

Plastic can be regasified (?) along with all sorts of other products.

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Organisms piggyback on plastic islands

by Posted in 2.1 reports, stats and studies Tagged

Miriam C. Goldstein, Henry S. Carson, Marcus Eriksen
Relationship of diversity and habitat area in North Pacific
plastic-associated rafting communities
Marine Biology
April 2014
DOI 10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8

Abstract
Plastic and other anthropogenic debris (e.g., rubber, tar) augment natural floating substrates (e.g., algal rafts, pumice) in the open ocean, allowing “islands” of substrate-associated organisms to persist in an otherwise unsuitable habitat.

We examined a total of 242 debris objects collected in the eastern Pacific in 2009 and 2011 (32–39°N, 130–142°W) and the western Pacific in 2012 (19–41°N, 143–156°E).

Here, we ask: (a) What taxa are associated with plastic rafts in the North
Pacific? and (b) Does the number of taxa associated with plastic debris vary with the size of the debris “island?”

We documented 95 rafting taxa from 11 phyla.

We identified several potentially invasive plastic-associated rafting taxa, including the coral pathogen Halofolliculina spp. In concordance with classic species–area curves,  the number of rafting taxa was positively correlated with the size of the raft. Our findings suggest that diversity patterns on plastic debris are compatible with the concept of island biogeography.

227_2014_2432_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (304KB)
Supplementary material 1 (PDF 304 kb)
http://link.springer.com/content/esm/art:10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8/file/MediaObjects/227_2014_2432_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

227_2014_2432_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx (69KB)
Supplementary material 2 (XLSX 69 kb)
http://link.springer.com/content/esm/art:10.1007/s00227-014-2432-8/file/MediaObjects/227_2014_2432_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx

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Food Waste

by Posted in 2.1 reports, stats and studies Tagged

Almost 50% of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our homes. We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this is food and drink we could have eaten. Love Food Hate Waste

Every tonne of biodegradable waste produces 300-500 cubic metres of landfill gas From Green Box Day

Global methane emissions from landfill are estimated to be between 30 and 70 million tonnes each year. Most of this landfill methane currently comes from developed countries, where the levels of waste tend to be highest.

Over a 20 year period, one ton of methane causes 72 times more warming than one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2).Read more about methane

We throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year, the majority of which could have been eaten. This costs us £12 billion a year, harms the environment and wastes resources. In the UK food industry, waste is estimated to cost £5 billion per year. HMGov

Every year we (Americans) generate around 14 million tons of food waste which is 106 pounds of food waste per person 570,000 tons of this is composted for a 4.1% recovery rate. The rest, or 13.4 million tons is incinerated or landfilled and occupies 6.3 million cubic yards of landfilled MSW. EPA Gov Paper

The single largest producer of food waste in the United Kingdom is the domestic household. In 2007, households created 6,700,000 tonnes of food waste – accounting for 19 per cent of all municipal solid waste.[33] Potatoes account for the largest quantity of avoidable[d] food disposed of; 359,000 tonnes per year are thrown away, 49 per cent (177,400 tonnes) of which are untouched.[34] Bread slices account for the second food type most disposed of (328,000 tonnes per year), and apples the third (190,000 tonnes per year).[34] Salad is disposed of in the greatest proportion – 45 per cent of all salad purchased by weight will be thrown away uneaten.[35] (Wikipedia)

In 2012, the European Com- mission set a target of reducing by 50 percent the rate
of food loss and waste in Europe by 2020.28 If this target were extended globally to 2050, our analysis suggests that achieving it would reduce the need to produce 1,314 tril- lion kcal of food per year in 2050 relative to the business- as-usual scenario described in “The Great Balancing Act,” the rst installment of this World Resources Report work- ing paper series.29 In other words, cutting the global rate of food loss and waste from 24 percent of calories down

to 12 percent would close roughly 22 percent of the 6,000 trillion kcal per year gap between food available today and that needed in 2050.30 Thus our analysis suggests that reducing food loss and waste could be one of the leading global strategies or “menu items” for achieving a sustain- able food future.

Global Food Losses & Waste report

 

Cows killed by plastic

by Posted in 2.1 reports, stats and studies Tagged

Cows hanging about on street corners eating plastic bags. Doesn’t do them any good at all and it is estimated that thousand dies each month from accidently ingesting the bad stuff.

The following is Taken from the Karuna Society for Animals & Nature website….

In December 2010, Karuna Society received 36 stray cattle from Anantapur town for permanent custody. Soon after their arrival one of the cows died. The post mortem conducted by our veterinary surgeon revealed that the animal’s rumen was full of plastic. After examination of all the animals, he advised us to start surgeries to remove plastics from their rumens to save their lives.

From the moment we received the “plastic cow” from Anantapur town, we realized that there are hundreds of cattle on the roads feeding on garbage, including plastic. They are sentenced to a slow and cruel death if they do not receive help in time. This is a cruelty most people are not aware of when they see the animals “peacefully” walking on the street. Think about big cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore where tens of thousands of animals are walking around with their bellies full of plastic.”

And its not just cows – all kinds of animals die from eating plastic

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Non Biodegradable Plastics – some considerations…

by Posted in 1.2 Plastic The Product

Plastic is everywhere and possibly closer than you think. You might be wearing cotton but I will bet you anything the thread used to sew your clothes is man-made. As for the elastic, buttons and velcro – all synthetic. Your table is wood but the varnish is plastic, your water from plastic pipes, your food from plastic wrappers, even your tin cans are lined with plastic.

In addition to being incredibly versatile, synthetic plastics are cheap. Products that would be extremely expensive if made from natural materials are affordable when made from synthetics. Computers, waterproof jackets, shoes and even furniture are all much more available to very many more people.

All plastics can be recycled. Because they are man-made they can be broken down and remade into new items.

Because they are (mostly) made from oil, and because they can be recycled, they obviously reduce the pressure on other natural resources. They can replace wood and steel and fibres so less land has to be farmed or mined, less forests cut down, less water diverted to irrigation and of course less pesticide pollution. All of which means less pressure on what is left of our wild habitats.

It is a wonderful product and it is easy to just how fantastic it seemed when it was first appeared – but 50 years on and the love affair is turning extremely sour.

Because most plastics are non biodegradable.

Non biodegradable oil based plastics the good, the bad and the ugly

The following points apply to non biodegradable oil based plastics – the commonest forms of plastic. Find out more about other kinds of plastic here.

So versatile… the many kinds of plastic

Plastic is made up single units, monomors of combined in a variety of ways. This process is called polymerisation. Different combinations result in different products. Products as dissimilar as hard machine parts to stuffed toys to glue are all made from plastics. Some products can be easily recognised as “plastic” others are not so obvious. Carrier bags? Plastic! Gel ink – what?? Find out how oil derived plastic is made here…

Then there are the additives….

Different chemicals are added to the base plastic increasing the range of properties.

While the polymers used in base plastics are generally harmless, the potential toxicity of the additives is often unknown and much more research needs to be done on the safe handling and ultimate disposal of these products.

Plastic Applications

What are plastics used for? just about everything. Have a look at this huge list of products made from synthetic polymers

Plastic Lifespan

Perhaps the most amazing thing about plastic is that it doesn’t rot. While every other thing on the planet is decomposing plastic remains unchanged. Find out why here

Problem Plastic

About 100 million tons of plastic are produced each year and much of it is used to make one-use, disposable items. Because plastic doesn’t biodegrade these items, though only used for moments, last for decades, centuries, possibly forever. We are creating ever lasting rubbish in huge and unsustainable amounts.

Not surprisingly plastic waste is increasing exponentially.It is now polluting the environment,maiming and killing the animals who come in contact with it,and destroying the resources accessed by the poorest.

Dirty, difficult to dispose of, kills animals and possibly carcinogenic and these are just some of the problems. You can find many more here.

 

P.E.Ts

by Posted in 1.3 Plastic Types - Fact Sheets Tagged , 2 Comments

Polyethylene terephthalat frequently shortened to PET or PETE and was formerly called PETP or PET-P.

It is an ethane derived plastic.

PET or PETE  (plastic code 1) is most often used for making fibers, things made by injection molding, and containers for food, drinks, pharmaceuticals, make-up etc.

PET fibers are used with other fibers to strengthen them, to make a fiber filling, for fabrics, and carpets,  automobile tire yarns, conveyor belts and seat belts, for non woven fabrics for stabilizing drainage ditches, culverts, and railroad beds, disposable fabrics for use in medical applications, sanitary protection, menstrual products and nappies.

Its other major use is for bottles and  jars for food processed at low temperatures.

It can be used to make a clear containers allowing the contents to be easily seen and identified.

It is intended for single use food packaging applications as repeated use is said to increase the risk of chemicals leaching from the plastic into the contents. There are claims that some of these chemicals may be carcinogenic and or endocrine disruptors.

PET is only 10% of the weight of an identical glass container, it allows for less expensive shipping and handling, saving a significant amount of money for companies around the world.” Copied from Wise Geek

PET starts softening at around 70 °C (160 °F).

It is claimed that bacteria can  colonise the rough surface of a PET.

PET plastic is an easily recyclable plastic  and about 25% of PET bottles in the US today are recycled.

It is made from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, just like paper. It is claimed that, just like paper, it can be safely burnt and will only produce carbon dioxide and water leaving no toxic residue.

However the Material Safety Data Sheet for PET states

Can burn in a fire creating dense toxic smoke. Molten plastic can cause severe thermal burns. Fumes produced during melt processing may cause eye, skin and respiratory tract irritation.

Secondary operations, such as grinding, sanding or sawing, can produce dust which may present a respiratory hazard. Product in pellet form is unlikely to cause irritation.
You can find MSDA sheets here
You can find information on the other types of plastic here.