A group of scientists in Port Elizabeth have created a groundbreaking shopping bag, the new innovation is biodegradable and designed to help the environment.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Polymer and Composite Research Group in Port Elizabeth have created this innovation using agricultural by-products.
The 100% biodegradable plastic bags are made up from maize and sugar cane. The group of scientists say that the bags will be completely biodegradable in mud‚ soil‚ water and compost. And that the process will take between three and six months to break down.
Woolworths and Pick n Pay have already signed up to start testing the shopping bags. The team says the bags will definitely be as durable as regular plastic bags, only healthier for our beautiful environment.
“These biodegradable plastic bags can improve market opportunities and end-user industry and reduce the amount of plastic waste in South Africa‚”
“The technology is mainly designed to meet physical-chemical properties but after their use when disposed in natural environments it undergoes biodegradation in landfill‚ compost and marine water by process of natural microorganisms in a timely and efficient manner.” – Sudhakar Muniyasamy‚ Senior Researcher at the CSIR
Currently about 90% of shopping bags in South Africa are not biodegradable. Sudhakar Muniyasamy hopes to give the retailers samples by September and have them commercially available early in the new year.
Sustainability Manager at Plastics SA Jacques Lightfoot believed the new bags would be good for the environment but had concerns over its effect on existing jobs in the industry.
“This bag would have a lot of solutions to what we are facing right now and has its place as long as it doesn’t destroy our recycling sector‚” Lightfoot said.
“We have 1 800 convertors in the industry making plastic products with around about 50 000 employees‚ and 231 recyclers with close to 5 000 employees.
“The problem for us is that the normal bags are also being recycled so if the new bags are not marked correctly they will contaminate normal bags if they are stored together. We hope it doesn’t affect our recycling industry.”
Will this also be replacing plastic packaging?
I think this is great. Plastics have an almost infinite number of uses, and packaging is only one of them. Every time I have to dispose of lots of packaging material, I have this unease about the environment, since it is a “use once” application. On the other hand, there are many applications where long-lasting plastics are preferred – furniture, cars, appliances, books, toys etc. I definitely believe something with a short degrading period and a fully biodegradable final destination is desirable in the right applications. I also hope we someday find a similar solution for long useful life plastics.