Michael Stephen Column

Recycling and Food Waste (FREE)

Today Michael talks about Recycling and Food Waste. This is a FREE article.

Recycling

The BPA has just published a revised and very detailed paper on recycling of plastics, showing clearly that d2w biodegradable PE and PP products can be safely recycled into short-life and long-life plastic products without separation from ordinary PE and PP. See Recycling  It is time that lobbyists stopped using recycling as an argument against this type of plastic.  It is essential to start using it to deal with the plastic which gets out into the open environment from which it cannot realistically be collected.

Food Waste

Food waste remains one of the most environmentally damaging phenomena on earth. Despite the continued concern over plastic’s ecological impact, the material plays a vital role in extending food shelf life and preventing rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  Packaging is essential to ensuring that food products reach consumers and don’t end up needlessly wasted, resulting in increased GHG emissions associated with production, transportation and rotting produce.  Symphony Environmental can make plastic packaging even better, by including ethylene and oxygen adsorbers in the plastic packaging, so as to remove the gases which cause the food to deteriorate.  See Designed to Protect   This cannot be done with paper or cardboard packaging.

If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter behind China and the US, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

There is no need to use expensive plastic marketed as compostable, for this purpose. See Compostable Plastics  

In addition, plastic is the only material in common use which can be made antimicrobial, and Symphony’s d2p antimicrobial technology has been proved by testing in accordance with ISO 21072 to kill 99.9% of viruses within one hour of coming into contact with it. All single-use plastics should now be made with anti-microbial technology.

Michael Stephen

Michael Stephen is a lawyer and was a member of the United Kingdom Parliament, where he served on the Environment Select Committee. When he left Parliament Symphony Environmental Technologies Plc. attracted his attention because of his interest in the environment. He is now Deputy Chairman of Symphony, which is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, and is the founder and Chairman of the Biodegradable Plastics Association.

Earlier Postings in this Column

All articles of Michael Stephen can be found here

Interview with Michael Stephen

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed here by Michael Stephen and other columnists are their own, not those of Bioplasticsnews.com.


Leave a Reply

%d