windspeakes asked: What do you think of biodegradables?

Biodegradables are a total scam. People really don’t know what actually goes into a landfill, and businesses package products in a way that takes advantage of that lack of knowledge.

Landfills are about 70% industrial, commercial, and municipal waste. Only about 30% is household waste. Of that 30%, about 12% (less than 1% total) is plastic, and 28% (about 5% of the total) is paper (eg, about 6% of landfills are plastic and paper - don’t let anyone fool you! Most enviro-greeny news articles don’t acknowledge that the majority of waste is industrial/commercial. In fact, even the EPA doesn’t fully acknowledge industrial waste in its reports! So, you’d have to research hard to figure it out. See here.).

Biodegradables make people think they’re putting less waste into landfills. They’re not. Biodegradables displace no trash, they simply replace one type of waste with another. There’s no overall effect on landfills or the environment.

In fact, I’d argue that the environmental impacts of biodegradables are higher than non-recyclable plastics due to inefficiencies in manufacturing and shipping. Research here. See my previous posts on waste here and here.