Environmental Issues
OXO plastics, especially in the form of plastic bags, are promoted and now widely used as an environmentally sound solution of the plastic littering problem, and they are now mandatory in the Middle-east and Africa. There are several environmental issues related to their use. Metal salts used as the catalyst for OXO degradation carry no risks of environmental pollution with heavy metals. A recent LCA made by INTERTEK in May 2012 classified oxo as the leading solution to address the problem of littering www.biodeg.org In case of lead,the BPI study is questionable as the amounts found had drastically exceeded the allowed concentrations, and the lead was not alleged to be in the oxo additive.: "The lead level was 4 times higher than those allowed by ASTM D6400-99 in the US and 12 times higher than the concentrations permitted in Europe (EN 13432) and Japan (GreenPLA)". But still there is a possibility that this heavy metals get taken under ground by rain water and finish in the water reservoirs where the city water is taken.
Other often discussed issues are the potential toxicity of the OXO plastic breakdown residue, loss of degradable properties in landfills, the ability of plastic fragments to survive long enough to present danger to wildlife and discouragement of planned plastic bag phase-outs. Although OXO plastic are considered recyclable, the additives could produce unpredictable quality of the secondary product, and there are few independent studies which describe their recycling efficiency and properties. It's also been said that the "biodegradable" public image is discouraging people from recycling, which leads to increased littering and the loss of the stored energetic potential (and therefore the value) of the material, which could be retrieved by recycling and other means of use. However it is clear that millions of tons of plastics are in the environment and a lot of countries do not have the capacity of recycling. In the world only 3% of the plastics is recycled and oxo offers an interesting alternative to plastics pollution in case of littering.
Read more about this topic: Oxo Biodegradable
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