Biodegradable Shopping Bags Offer Realistic Solution to Cleaner Environment

On Earth Day this past April, Down to Earth began using biodegradable shopping bags in a move to contribute to a cleaner and safer environment. Our environmental stewardship has a long history.

Down to Earth has been offering a variety of reusable bags for decades—almost going back to when we began operations in Wailuku over thirty years ago. We started all this when re-usable bags weren’t even fashionable. Throughout all this time we have been crediting five cents per bag to customers who reuse their bags. However, advancements in technology now let us do better.

In a perfect world, plastic would be eliminated altogether. But that’s not the reality we live in. For those customers who shop and don’t have a reusable bag with them and thus need a bag for their purchases, the most practical and environmentally friendly step we can take is to use biodegradable bags.

We made this decision after a careful, year-long review of alternatives. Our goal was to strike a balance with keeping costs down and the need to contribute to a cleaner and safer environment.

These biodegradable bags break down completely into water, carbon dioxide, and harmless humus on land and in the ocean. This biodegradation process can take place with or without the presence of light or oxygen. These factors allow for biodegradation when buried in the ground or when disposed in compost bins or landfills, which normally prevent degradation because they become air tight. The new environmentally friendly bags completely biodegrade in 9 months to 5 years, and can be recycled along with regular plastic bags.

Biodegradation is Complete

These biodegradable bags are made using conventional plastic that includes an additive that allows plastic to completely biodegrade. The additive technology is based on a process that causes plastic films to biodegrade when they are exposed to microorganisms in the environment. This process continues until the plastic becomes part of the organic components of the soil, just like biodegraded sticks or other pieces of wood become part of the soil.

Consumers need not worry about oil from the plastic getting into the ground because the common belief that plastic bags are made from oil is not true. Plastic bags are made out of polyethylene, which comes from ethane extracted from natural gas. So, there’s no oil to begin with, and no oil going into the environment from plastic bags.

Confirmed by Independent Labs

Tests by independent laboratories concluded that the films treated with the additive biodegrade under short and long-term conditions where the film is exposed to oxygen, and over a longer period of time without oxygen. The length of time depends on the amount of exposure to other biodegrading materials. In addition, the tests concluded that the films did not produce any toxic residue harmful to living organisms in land or water.

The beauty of all this is that we now have an environmentally sound solution to the plastic-bag dilemma using the most cost-effective biodegradable plastic technology available today. The new bags cost only a couple cents more or less per bag, depending on the size of the bag, so it’s a win/win solution for business and consumers alike.

Compostable Bags Not an Option

Before deciding on the ECM technology, we considered compostable bags made from corn starch. However, we learned that the trend towards ethanol and plant-based plastics is taking up farmland and putting pressure on the food supply.

According to a report issued by the World Bank last year, this trend was causing food shortages around the world and contributing to up to 75% of the increase in food costs. So, we didn’t want to be a part of that.

In addition, compostable bags would have cost 12 to 15 cents per bag, which is four to five times more than what we pay for conventional plastic bags. We would have needed to pass some of that cost on to customers, which we didn’t want to do. And finally, compostable bags contaminate the recycle stream for conventional plastic. This means local communities would need a costly infrastructure to collect and recycle only compostable bags. So, the whole argument for compostable bags didn’t make sense.

Paper Bags Worse for the Environment

As for paper bags, many people wrongly assume they are better for the environment because their core ingredient is derived from wood, which is a natural and renewable product. But it takes more than four times the energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does a plastic one. And, it takes more energy to ship them in because paper bags are considerably heavier than plastic. In addition, millions of gallons of toxic chemicals used to make paper each year pour into waterways, settling into sediments and working their way into the food chain. Or, they shoot up smoke stacks and contribute to air pollution such as acid rain. The wood industry is also responsible for clear-cutting old growth forests and adding to the problems of deforestation.

Therefore, the truly sustainable environmentally sound solution to the plastic bag dilemma is to embrace the best biodegradable technology available while encouraging people to re-use their bags. In so doing we will contribute to a cleaner and safer environment.

It’s true that these bags take 9 months to 5 years to biodegrade. However, compared with the centuries required for conventional plastic to breakdown, that’s no time at all.

Feedback from customers has been very positive, and we are thrilled to have brought these bags to our store.