Plastic Bag Claims Environment Friendly. Actually It’s Not.

Ever heard of a plastic bag that claims to be environment friendly? I just stumbled upon an Alcyon Bakery bread loaf. On the bottom of its plastic packing said “environment friendly” in Dhivehi. This was first time I heard of environment friendly plastic. Immediately, I opened my browser and just dug in.



After some online searches it was evident that biodegradable plastic is something that actually exists, but it too is not environment friendly. According to an article on The Guardian research shows this biodegradable plastic does more harm than good. Also the biodegradability depends on many factors such as humidity or oxygen, without presence of right conditions this plastic is not biodegradable.



Having stated “environment friendly” on a local bread that you can buy from many convenient stores it must be friendly to the Maldives environment. But the fact seems to be far from this.

In Maldives we have lagoons, reefs, oceans all around us. Researchers say biodegradable plastic does not easy get destroyed in these environments. To get biodegradable plastic destroyed you have to keep it in the sun light and it has to get oxygen, then it takes 3 years. I would not call this environment friendly at all. If someone else does, I would say it is misleading and misinforming the public.

If you bury this plastic it will not get sunlight, nor will it get oxygen. So, buried plastic will not destroyed in 3 years.

Researchers say normal plastic takes 100 years to get destroyed. In such a case 3 years is fairly good if it gets destroyed in the sea or while buried in the ground. Therefore, labeling biodegradable plastic as “environment friendly” is something that has to be stopped.



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