Plastic Waste

We had some Tesco ones that did the same.

IIRC quite a few decades ago, the whole business of plastic bags littering the countryside was a popular topic, because they weren't breaking down. Then some chap came up with the idea of incorporating starch granules into the plastic, which would degrade in sunlight or something, and the plastic would fairly rapidly disintegrate into smaller and smaller pieces, so would no longer be visually offensive littering roadsides etc. I wonder if that process is still used, or if they have another way of getting the bags to fall to pieces.

Reply to
Chris Hogg
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I think those were an oxi-degradable plastic. I remember putting some Christmas tree decorations in one and storing it in the loft only to find that it had fallen to pieces by next Christmas. Certainly didn?t need light to trigger the process.

There are photo-degradable plastics but they just fragment and aren?t really a solution to plastic pollution.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

I had saved quite a lot of Waitrose ones from before the 5p charge, as I use them as kitchen bin liners, having bought a bin designed to used regular carrier bags as liners. However, they fell to pieces after about a year, and that was without any sunlight.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Some carriers (e.g. tesco pre carrier charge) and magazine wrappings (e.g. New Scientist) are/were oxygen degradeable.

Reply to
Andy Burns

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