Plastic Sustainability
Consider the amount of plastic you put into the recycling on a typical day. Now consider how much plastic inadvertently ends up in your garbage instead. Everything from a coffee cup lid to a plastic yogurt container can end up in your garbage instead of your recycling. Even if you are careful to place these items in your recycling, accidents can happen and these items will spend the next few centuries sitting in a landfill or floating in the ocean. While many plastic products are undoubtedly convenient, they also come with a high environmental cost. At Change Plastic for Good, we are committed to facilitating plastic sustainability by adding BDP® to plastic products and encouraging companies to join the movement to make plastic truly sustainable. That’s why we have provided some information to outline what plastic sustainability is and why it should matter to everyone.
Learn more about BDP® and how it contributes to total plastic sustainability.
What is Plastic Sustainability?
Plastic sustainability is just as it sounds – the process of making plastic a sustainable commodity. While this has been attempted through recycling and other means in the past, time has shown that these methods are not enough to prevent plastic products from piling up on the land and in the ocean. While we may need plastic products for many elements of our lives, we do not need plastic waste. Just as we cannot simply stop using plastic, we also cannot rely solely on recycling to manage plastic waste and make it sustainable.
Consumers and companies alike have become increasingly sensitive to sustainability as the effects of climate change have pressured everyone to act. Unfortunately, the term “sustainability” is poorly defined and can be interpreted in many ways. As a result, the sustainability practices of one company to the next can vary greatly. Add this to the complex nature of marketing phrases and rampant greenwashing, and it becomes difficult to determine what plastic sustainability truly is. While plastic sustainability may vary to some, to us, plastic sustainability means adding BDP® to plastic products to accelerate the biodegradation process, raising awareness for greenwashing, and encouraging individuals and corporations alike to join the movement to change plastic for good.
Why Does it Matter?
It is estimated that roughly 80% of all plastic is currently sitting in a landfill and will continue to sit there for hundreds of years. Some plastic products will take an estimated 500 years to break down, meaning that newly discarded bottles, bags, and packaging will still be in a landfill in the year 2400, buried under countless other plastic products. The truth of the matter is that recycling is simply not enough to make plastic sustainable as the process takes too long and too many products end up in landfills anyway. That is why BDP® and the movement to change plastic for good matters. If we cannot stop plastic from ending up in landfills, then we need to ensure these products will break down as quickly as possible. To put it another way, if we cannot change the processes surrounding plastic, then we need to change plastic itself.
To learn more about the movement or the science behind BDP, get in touch with the team at Change Plastic for Good. We can be reached through our online contact form and will be happy to answer any questions you may have about plastic sustainability or partnering with us.
