While browsing the pet store the other day I picked up some refill doggie bags (and I’m not talking the kind of doggie bag you get in a restaurant) for our little Bags on Board dispenser. I was pleased to see that these bags were now “100% Biodegradable”. It wasn’t until I got home with them that I realized this was “except as defined by California”. And this is a pity, because Jackson poops almost exclusively in California.
Looking now, their website doesn’t actually mention the biodegradable thing (although you can see the little red stickers, and in fact these stickers don’t have that little disclaimer).
It turns out that this is not the fault of slacking Californian anaerobes, but legislation passed recently by the California Assembly which apparently is the first piece of legislation anywhere to put legal limits on the use of the term “biodegradable”. According to California, something is biodegradable if the ASTM Standard Specification for Compostable Plastics says it is. Unfortunately it costs $30 find out what that says.
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/97-98/bill/asm/ab_0351-0400/ab_362_cfa_19970407_095237_asm_comm.html
I’ve been wondering about the same question. I found part of the answer for free at the link above (something is biodegradable if it decomposes into something non-toxic within a year). the question is these bags are biodegradable at all. 2 years? three? never?
thanks guys, i was wondering the same thing.
A SLEAZY MIX OF POLITICS, MONEY, and MISLEADING PROPAGANDA POLLUTES CALIFORNIA’S ENVIRONMENTAL LABELING LEGISLATION
The state of California has passed a law, assembly bill number 2417, stating that the words biodegradeable, oxo-biodegradable, degradable, and every possible synonym for those words, in effect, belong to the corn-based plastics (PLA) industry. No biodegradable plastic made out of naphtha, an otherwise useless industrial byproduct, may be labeled biodegradable, nor any synonym thereof, may, given current technlogy, be called biodegradable, even if they do, in fact, biodegrade in one day longer than 120 days. This is true even if the biodegradable plastic alternatives are far more likely to biodegrade in a landfill that the corn based plastic alternative. The net effect of this is to increase the demand for corn based plastics. The result of making non-food items out of corn has driven a price spike in the world grain supply that threatens hundreds of millions of impoverished third world citizens with starvation.
A further effect of this is to deny the citizens of California the benefits of new technology that makes inexpensive, recyclable, disposable plastic products-garbage bags, shopping bags, plastic cutlery, straws, styrofoam cups and containers, deli containers, soda bottles, etc. etc. The corn based plastics cannot be recycled under in any existing system in place in California, whereas the naphtha based biodegradable plastic alternatives can. In fact, the recycling lobby is trying to ban corn based plastic bottles, because it gets confused with PET, and wrecks their recycled PET plastic batches.
Who is behind this? I can’t prove it, but I strongly believe that Cargill Inc. and Dow Inc. have been working behind the scenes to create this spike in corn prices, with no concern whatsoever for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who struggle to find food every day. Cargill has acquired the 50 percent interest in Cargill Dow LLC previously 100% owned by Dow Chemical Co. and has renamed the company NatureWorks LLC. That’s right, that friendly neighbor Dow that brought you napalm and Agent Orange. Cargill is a huge company that has a great interest in making things besides food out of corn-no matter how many millions of children in the third world starve to death as a result. Campaign contribution laws in this country are so lax that I don’t think they even had to break the law to get away with this appalling tactic. So, Californians, the next time you wonder why biodegradable plastic items are so expensive in your state, and of such poor quality, my belief is that it’s because of your legislature, your governor, Cargill Inc. and Dow Chemical Company, Inc. -Tim Dunn
The technical definition of “biodegrade” means that something can be “decomposed by biological agents, usually bacteria.” The bags Chris bought are photodegradable (meaning sunlight will break them down) but nothing biological will break down the bags. The catch with plastic is that although it is photodegradable it will NEVER decompose (meaning it won’t be broken down into elements, as in the periodic table of elements) and return to the earth. Plastic just photodegrades into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces until it is practically invisible to the naked eye but is still present. My big concern is when we get to the point where we have all this photodegraded plastic in our soil and can’t grow anything anymore and can’t figure out a way to get the plastic OUT of our soil.