| 'Bioplastic' may become third option to paper or plastic |
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Paper, plastic ... or biodegradable? Yes, get ready to add a third option at the grocery store checkout line as biodegradable plastics enter the mainstream consumer market. It is hard to imagine that the plastic grocery bag made its debut only 30 years ago. But now, even in Antarctica, scientists regularly find them blowing about. The problem is that, unlike many other overnight sensations, plastics stick around. It can take roughly 1,000 years for some petroleum-based plastics to disintegrate. And when they do disintegrate, traditional plastics leave behind a messy legacy of fragments and chemical residues that get absorbed into streams and soil. In the meantime, they clog landfills and rivers, or kill whales and sea turtles that mistake them for food. With up to 1 trillion plastic bags manufactured annually and 2.7 million tons of plastic used just to bottle water each year, concern is rising worldwide. Bookmark this page!      |
| Source: | csmonitor.com |
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