T&T Supermarket Plastic Bags, now 100% biodegradable plastic

Went grocery shopping today and bought more groceries than the reuseable bags I brought could carry and I ended up with 2 plastic bags to carry the rest of my groceries.

Printed right on the plastic bag says: "100% biodegradable plastic"

I was wondering what this means? It'll decompose faster in our landfills? Can these bags still be recycled?

I like the idea at least. Good on T&T for giving this some effort.

Probably corn starch based plastic bags. I first saw these several years ago, but don't know much about them.

Here's the google search if it might interest you: Corn starch plastic bags

Biodegradable.... in a 1,000,000 years...

Originally Posted by Blunt

Biodegradable.... in a 1,000,000 years...

that is long time

this is a step in the right direction, however stores such as ikea that started charging for plastic bags several weeks back should provide the customer with a discount. Previously we were paying the same price and plastic bags were included, now we are paying the same price and plastic bags are excluded. Think about how much money a company would save by charging for them. That money should be directly translate into some sort of a rebate to the customer....just a thought

Originally Posted by pengu

Went grocery shopping today and bought more groceries than the reuseable bags I brought could carry and I ended up with 2 plastic bags to carry the rest of my groceries.

Printed right on the plastic bag says: "100% biodegradable plastic"

I was wondering what this means? It'll decompose faster in our landfills? Can these bags still be recycled?

I like the idea at least. Good on T&T for giving this some effort.

Bascially what it means is enough of the bag is biodegrdeable that if you leave it in a compost after a year you can't see the plastic anymore. But it is still there. It is just tiny dust size particles.

Most plastic is not 100% biodegradable, not even bioplastics, unless it is being done in a high-temperature commercial grade composter. More importantly, no biodegradeable plastic will degrade in a sealed landfill environment (heck most paper will not even properly degrade in this environment).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic

Originally Posted by pengu

... Printed right on the plastic bag says: "100% biodegradable plastic"

I was wondering what this means? It'll decompose faster in our landfills? Can these bags still be recycled?

I like the idea at least. Good on T&T for giving this some effort.

I noticed and wondered the same. Only what's printed on my bag is "100% degradable plastic bag"... not sure if bio/degradable have similar meaning.

but do they have lead in them?

lead-laced bags to carry my genetically modified abnormally large fruit.

yummy!