green corporate ethics?

Here's a very interesting new article from method co-founder Adam Lowry, writing for treehugger.com, concerning so called "green plastics" and how they might just not be as green as they want you to believe (No! From the plastics industry!? I'm shocked... wink.)

"Corporate ethics is one of the most critical components of the green tech revolution today. The foundation of sustainable product design is innovation in base materials, novel new green chemistries that replace dirty ones, better building materials that don't pollute or off-gas, and novel new plastics that are compatible with the environment. However, there is a concerning trend emerging of material innovation half-measures that create wonderful marketing claims for their producers, but no significant environmental benefit.

Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the world of plastics. In an effort to improve upon the dismal environmental fate of most plastics that end up in our landfills, gutters, or oceans, an enormous amount of energy has been focused on creating biodegradable, plant based, or somehow greener plastics ... These new technologies are exciting and necessary. However, new findings are emerging that shed light on the fact that eliminating the unwanted consequences of plastic use and fundamentally reinventing the plastics that pervade our daily lives is harder than it looks.

A new study published recently in Environmental Science & Technology shows that the class of plastics known as oxo-degradable plastics, may not be as green as they seem. Oxo-degradable plastics are regular polyethylene (PE, or "#2") or polypropylene (PP, or "#5") plastics that contain special additives that cause them to degrade when exposed to sunlight or heat. The promise is appealing—plastics just like the ones we use everyday, without any of the nasty side effects. But this new study shows that instead of actually degrading the plastic, these additives simply break the plastic down into particles too small for us to see, making it potentially more dangerous by mobilizing into our soil and water small particles of plastic that can absorb pollutants and other chemicals..."

Read the entire article here!

and here we have...

The North Atlantic ocean just called. It was feeling really jealous of the Pacific Ocean and said it wanted it's own giant plastic sludge patch to play with! - No more sharing! Well, hey, and it got it. Yeah, yeah, plastics industry, you just keep on telling yourself you're NOT part of the problem. Frickin' frackin'... (thanks to method luster Rebecca for this article!)

PS - This is THE line to keep in mind: "(We are) a throwaway culture that uses non-biodegradable materials for disposable products."

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A 2nd garbage patch: Plastic soup seen in Atlantic | By Mike Melia

Researchers are warning of a new blight at sea: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

The floating garbage — hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents — was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands.

The studies describe a soup of micro-particles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.

"We found the great Atlantic garbage patch," said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a sailing voyage in February.

The debris is harmful for fish, sea mammals — and at the top of the food chain, potentially humans — even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible.

Since there is no realistic way of cleaning the oceans, advocates say the key is to keep more plastic out by raising awareness and, wherever possible, challenging a throwaway culture that uses non-biodegradable materials for disposable products.

"Our job now is to let people know that plastic ocean pollution is a global problem — it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch," Cummins said.

The research teams presented their findings in February at the 2010 Oceans Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon. While scientists have reported finding plastic in parts of the Atlantic since the 1970s, the researchers say they have taken important steps toward mapping the extent of the pollution.

Cummins and her husband, Marcus Eriksen, of Santa Monica, California, sailed across the Atlantic for their research project. They plan similar studies in the South Atlantic in November and the South Pacific next spring.

On the voyage from Bermuda to the Azores, they crossed the Sargasso Sea, an area bounded by ocean currents including the Gulf Stream. They took samples every 100 miles (160 kilometers) with one interruption caused by a major storm. Each time they pulled up the trawl, it was full of plastic.

A separate study by undergraduates with the Woods Hole, Massachusetts-based Sea Education Association collected more than 6,000 samples on trips between Canada and the Caribbean over two decades. The lead investigator, Kara Lavendar Law, said they found the highest concentrations of plastics between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude, an offshore patch equivalent to the area between roughly Cuba and Washington, D.C.

Long trails of seaweed, mixed with bottles, crates and other flotsam, drift in the still waters of the area, known as the North Atlantic Subtropical Convergence Zone. Cummins' team even netted a Trigger fish trapped alive inside a plastic bucket.

But the most nettlesome trash is nearly invisible: countless specks of plastic, often smaller than pencil erasers, suspended near the surface of the deep blue Atlantic.

"It's shocking to see it firsthand," Cummins said. "Nothing compares to being out there. We've managed to leave our footprint really everywhere."

Still more data are needed to assess the dimensions of the North Atlantic patch.

Charles Moore, an ocean researcher credited with discovering the Pacific garbage patch in 1997, said the Atlantic undoubtedly has comparable amounts of plastic. The east coast of the United States has more people and more rivers to funnel garbage into the sea. But since the Atlantic is stormier, debris there likely is more diffuse, he said.

Whatever the difference between the two regions, plastics are devastating the environment across the world, said Moore, whose Algalita Marine Research Foundation based in Long Beach, California, was among the sponsors for Cummins and Eriksen.

"Humanity's plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint," he said...

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Read the rest over on Yahoo! News

quick quotes

Here's an interesting quote for thought (this is in response to an article concerning a more recyclable milk jug; but I think it covers recycling in general, as well):

"...We have to stop making things that are "recyclable" and close the loop to make things reusable. 70% of recyclable goods end up in the land fill or floating out in the middle of the Pacific. Recycling for the general consumer is a stop gap measure that is a loser - unless there is a large economic incentive (i.e. deposit fee). I pay $1.50 at the supermarket for a glass milk bottle that costs $3.99. I have a huge incentive to return this bottle for my $1.50. And if I don't, it's not plastic that takes decades to biodegrade. Let's end the insanity of recyclable as the answer..."
- John H. (via treehugger.com)

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Thoughts?

behind the scenes

You know, I've always been interested in seeing just exactly what happens to my recyclables once I've thrown them in the container, and the waste management trucks have picked them up! So I finally did some investigating, and it's rather interesting! Check it out!