Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 23:02:07 +0100, Max Demian
wrote:

On 21/04/2018 21:40, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
alan_m writes:

For the past few days news on the plastic eating enzymes been offered as
the solution for some of our plastic waste.

Is anyone old enough to remember the BBC Doomwatch program where
aircraft were falling out of the sky because the plastic in them was
being recycled this way?

Andy Hamilton mentioned this on the BBC Radio 4 New Quiz.
He said his plastic shopping bags always biodegrade as he
lifts the shopping out of the car boot...

Rymans had a batch of plastic bags a few years ago that disintegrated if
you kept them in the drawer for a few months. They had a message on them
that told you to keep them for reuse.

We had some Tesco ones that did the same.

IIRC quite a few decades ago, the whole business of plastic bags
littering the countryside was a popular topic, because they weren't
breaking down. Then some chap came up with the idea of incorporating
starch granules into the plastic, which would degrade in sunlight or
something, and the plastic would fairly rapidly disintegrate into
smaller and smaller pieces, so would no longer be visually offensive
littering roadsides etc. I wonder if that process is still used, or if
they have another way of getting the bags to fall to pieces.


I think those were an oxi-degradable plastic. I remember putting some
Christmas tree decorations in one and storing it in the loft only to find
that it had fallen to pieces by next Christmas. Certainly didnt need light
to trigger the process.

There are photo-degradable plastics but they just fragment and arent
really a solution to plastic pollution.

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls