Biodegradable seems like it should be a really good thing. After all, everything in nature biodegrades.
However, Anne Johnson the director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, disagrees.
She believes that consumers think something biodegradable will simply disappear. Unfortunately
Johnson does not see the benefit of taking a non-renewable resource and adding it to a landfill to
Figure 8: Artisan Wine Company
Painted Turtle Wines
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biodegrade. She also notes one of the biggest misconceptions of landfills: that trash decomposes
in them. Landfills are designed with many liners to prevent leaching and actually end up acting
like tombs and preserving waste, not biodegrading it. Waste that does biodegrade will produce
methane gas which has 23 times more greenhouse gas potency than carbon dioxide. Johnson
believes that much more of the 90 percent of fossile-fuel-based plastic packaging currently going
into landfills needs be collected and recovered (Johnson 2008).
The fact that there is so much packaging material going to landfills is the great tragedy of packaging.
We know, however, that paper, not plastics, take up the greatest volume in landfills, and
paper is already biodegradable! While the biodegradable idea is fairly new, it was one of the issues
raised in Susan E. M. Selke, Ph.D.’s book: “ Packaging and the Environment.” This is interesting
as the book was published in 1990. While it would seem that nearly 20 years later, the topics she
discusses in her book would be out of date, the issues remain largely the same.
Selke, as Johnson, emphasizes that the big problem with packaging is its impact on solid waste
management of which there are three major ways to manage. First, and most obviously, is landfills,
but this cannot be the answer according to Selke. The second option is still having trouble
taking off; as many people still do not recycle. The recycle option also includes recycling energy.
This basically means retrieving the energy lost from creating the packages by burning them,
creating steam, and using that to create power. The idea of incinerating much of our waste is not
appealing to many people, but it is a viable way of retrieving much of the energy used to manufacture
products and packaging. The third method of solid waste reduction is the one that, by far,
has made the most progress. The reduction of materials has had a huge impact on the mass of
items going into landfills. While this has been pushed as an economic factor, the environmental
savings are great (Selke 61).
In 1990, as well as now, saving money has always been one of the biggest factor in why changes
happen. Saving energy is another important environment issue that has been spurned on by rising
costs. With that in mind — Selke discussed which types of packaging had the least amount
of energy impact. She points out first and foremost that plastics actually have great energy savings,
despite the idea that since they come from oil and/or natural gas and therefore consume
more energy. In fact, plastics are easy to process and light to ship making them a deal when it
comes to conserving energy. Also, when burned, plastics release a large amount of energy which can be retrieved.