A few weeks ago Enviro Girl stumbled across PERF Go Green biodegradable tall kitchen garbage bags for sale at her local hardware store. She’s noticed this store stocking many environmentally friendly products; no surprise, as the owner seems to appreciate nature and wildlife. (If the three aisles of bird seed and bird feeders indicates anything.) When her roll of garbage bags ran out, Enviro Girl remembered the “green” garbage bags and grabbed a box.
Her box of PERF garbage bags totaled just under $6.00 with tax, but Enviro Girl is used to paying a little more green for greener products. She shrugged it off and brought it home. The bags fit her kitchen wastebasket like a glove, the handles slightly elastic and gripping the top of the container. Maybe they were a better bargain, she mused, they were much stronger than the cheap roll of “Ruffles” bags she usually bought.
Enviro Girl’s family of five (plus one semi-stray cat) generates 1.5 tall kitchen garbage bags of waste every week on average. About 20.5 gallons of trash total each week — a little more during the holidays and less during the summertime — so she estimates their landfill contribution at 1,066 gallons of trash a week. These bags are made from recycled plastics and within 2 years they are completely broken down.
Feeling virtuous with her new “green” trash bags, Enviro Girl consciously upped her compost heap contributions. At $0.50 a bag, these babies weren’t cheap and she would try to save both money and garbage by committing to filling only ONE 13 gallon bag per week. She’d pay extra for these greener bags and that would be an incentive to use fewer trash bags, all good for the environment, right? By reducing her garbage by 1/3, she’d have to become an even more vigilant consumer and recycler, but she’s Enviro Girl, it’s what she does!
And then realization smacked her in the face like a bamboo bo staff! Enviro Girl was the hapless victim of green-washing. She’s embarrassed and mortified to admit it. She should have known better. She began thinking about her self-righteous investment into biodegradable plastic bags made out of recycled plastic and realized the contradiction. Biodegradable plastic? There is no such thing! Plastics are not biodegradable — they are “oxo-degradable.” They don’t degrade into nothing or even into anything helpful or harmless. According to this article in The Guardian, these biodegradable plastics require very specific temperatures and humidity to break down, neither found with any reliability in a northern Wisconsin landfill. And these special bags take a lot of energy and oil to make. They’re not a “green” choice for the environment by any stretch of the imagination. Enviro Girl was as well off using her “Ruffles” plastic bags for 7 cents a bag for all the environmental benefits of either option. And arguably the best option is NO trash bag, or reusing bags.
Enviro Girl will use up her expensive green-washed trash bags and return again to using “Ruffles” until she can find a better option. And she’s going to speak to the manager of the hardware store and tell him what she learned. For all she knows, he’s a hapless victim, too.
At least you realized – I probably would have still been thinking I was doing the right thing.
Knowledge is power and now you know. I’m with the Green Queen, I don’t know if I would have noticed. Telling the owner of the hardware store will be a good step too.
That’s awful – thanks for sharing…I was planning on buying something similar!
Recycled content is great but I never understood why you would even want a degradable or biodegradable plastic. t is not like we would scoop it up from a landfill and use it to pot my flowers if it were…just think of all the yuck like batteries etc that would be in your compost…ick!
I fight this issue at work all the time. People are constant trying to sell us biodegradable plastic utensils, water bottles, etc. Unless it’s corn, soy, or sugar cane based…leave me alone. I ain’t buying.
(Do note there are many “plastic” looking items now that are actually made from plants…you just have to check carefully.)
I’m becoming more and more attentive to reading labels. I could easily be a victim of greenwashing if I didn’t. Thanks for sharing your experience.