Bioplastics – are they the answer?

From Peak Energy blog; August 27, 2008

From last week’s blog post, we discussed how bio based plastics do indeed save energy during the production of the polymers, and produce fewer greenhouse gasses during the process.  Yet right off the bat, it could be argued that carbon footprints may be an irrelevant measurement,  because it has been established that plants grow more quickly and are more drought and heat resistant in a CO2 enriched atmosphere!   Many studies have shown that worldwide food production has risen, possibly by as much as 40%, due to the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels.[1] Therefore, it is both ironic and a significant potential problem for biopolymer production if the increased CO2 emissions from human activity were rolled back, causing worldwide plant growth to decline. This in turn would greatly increase the competition for biological sources of food and fuel – with biopolymers coming in last place.[2]  But that’s probably really stretching the point.

The development of bioplastics holds the potential of renewability, biodegradation, and a path away from harmful additives. They are not, however, an automatic panacea.  Although plant-based plastics appeal to green-minded consumers thanks to their renewable origins,  their production carries environmental costs that make them less green than they may seem.  It’s important to remember that bioplastics, just like regular plastics, are synthetic polymers; it’s just that plants are being used instead of oil to obtain the carbon and hydrogen needed for polymerization.

It’s good marketing, but bad honesty, as they say, because there are so many types of plastics and bioplastics that you don’t know what you’re getting in to;  bioplastics are much more complicated than biofuels.  There are about two dozen different ways to create a bioplastic, and each one has different properties and capabilities.

Actually the term “bioplastic” is pretty meaningless, because some bioplastics are actually made from oil – they’re called “bioplastics” because they are biodegradeable.  That causes much confusion because plastics made from oil can be biodegradeable whereas some plant-based  bioplastics are not. So the term bioplastics can refer either to the raw material (biomass) or, in the case of oil-based plastic, to its biodegradability.  The problem with biodegradability and compostability is that there is no agreement as to what that actually means either,  and under what circumstances

You might also see the term “oxo-degradable”.   Oxo-degradables look like plastic, but they are not. It is true that the material falls apart, but that is because it contains metal salts which cause it to disintegrate rapidly into tiny particles. Then you cannot see it anymore, but it is still there, in the ocean too. Just as with conventional plastics, these oxo-degradables release harmful substances when they are broken down.

Let’s re-visit  some of the reasons bioplastics are supposed to be an environmental benefit:

• Because it’s made from plants, which are organic, they’re good for the planet.  Polymer bonds can be created from oil, gas or plant materials. The use of plant materials does not imply that the resulting polymer will be organic or more environmentally friendly. You could make non-biodegradable, toxic plastic out of organic corn!
• Bioplastics are biodegradable. Although made from materials that can biodegrade, the way that material is turned into plastic  makes it difficult (if not impossible) for the materials to naturally break down.  There are bioplastics made from vegetable matter (maize or grass, for example) which are no more biodegradable than any other plastics, says Christiaan Bolck of Food & Biobased Research.[3]  Bioplastics do not universally biodegrade in normal conditions  –  some require special, rare conditions to decompose, such as high heat composting facilities, while others may simply take decades or longer to break down again, mitigating the supposed benefits of using so-called compostable plastics material. There are no independent standards for what even constitutes “biodegradable plastic.”  Sorona makes no claim to break down in the environment; Ingeo is called “compostable” (though it can only be done in industrial high heat composters). Close studies of so-called degradable plastics have shown that some only break down to plastic particles which are so small they can’t be seen  (“out of sight, out of mind”), which are more easily ingested by animals. Indeed, small plastic fragments of this type may also be better able to attract and concentrate pollutants such as DDT and PCB.[4]
• Bioplastics are recyclable. Because bioplastics come in dozens of varieties, there’s no way to make sure you’re getting the right chemicals in the recycling vat – so although some bioplastics are recyclable, the recycling facilities won’t separate them out.  Cargill Natureworks insists that PLA  can in theory be recycled, but in reality it is likely to be confused with polyethylene terephthalate (PET).  In October 2004, a group of recyclers and recycling advocates issued a joint call for Natureworks to stop selling PLA for bottle applications until the recycling questions were addressed.[5]  But the company claims that levels of PLA in the recycling stream are too low to be considered a contaminant.  The process of recycling bioplastics is cumbersome and expensive – they present a real problem for recyclers because they cannot be handled using conventional processes. Special equipment and facilities are often needed. Moreover, if bioplastics commingle with traditional plastics, they contaminate all of the other plastics, which forces waste management companies to reject batches of otherwise recyclable materials.
• Bioplastics are non-toxic.  Because they’re not made from toxic inputs (as are oil based plastics), bioplastics have the reputation for being non toxic.  But we’re beginning to see the same old toxic chemicals produced from a different (plant-based) source of carbon. Example:  Solvay’s bio-based PVC uses phthalates,  requires chlorine during production, and produces dioxins during manufacture, recycling and disposal. As one research group commissioned by the European Bioplastics Association was forced to admit, with regard to PVC,  “The use of bio-based ethylene is …  unlikely to reduce the environmental impact of PVC with respect to its toxicity potential.[6]

The arguments against supporting bioplastics include the fact that they are corporate owned, they compete with food, they bolster industrial agriculture and lead us deeper into genetic engineering, synthetic biology and nanotechnology.  I am not with those who think we shouldn’t go there, because we sorely need scientific inquiry  and eventually we might even get it right.  But, for example, today’s industrial agriculture is not, in my opinion, sustainable, and the genetic engineering we’re doing is market driven with no altruistic motive. 

If properly designed, biodegradable plastics have the potential to become a much-preferred alternative to conventional plastics. The Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative (SBC)[7] is a coalition of organizations that advances the introduction and use of biobased products. They seek to replace dependence on materials made from harmful fossil fuels with a new generation of materials made from plants – but the shift they propose is more than simply a change of materials.  They promote (according to their website): sustainability standards, practical tools, and effective policies to drive and shape the emerging markets for these products.  They also refer to “sustainable bioplastics” rather than simply “bioplastics”.  In order to be a better choice, these sustainable bioplastics must be:

• Derived from non-food, non-GMO source materials – like algae rather than GMO corn, or from sustainably grown and harvested cropland or forests;
• Safe for the environment during use;
• Truly compostable and biodegradable;
• Free of toxic chemicals during the manufacturing and recycling process;
• Manufactured without hazardous inputs and impacts (water, land and chemical use are considerations);
• Recyclable in a cradle-to-cradle cycle.

Currently, manufacturers are not responsible for the end-life of their products. Once an item leaves their factories, it’s no longer the company’s problem. Therefore, we don’t have a system by which adopters of these new bioplastics would be responsible for recovering, composting, recycling, or doing whatever needs to be done with them after use. Regarding toxicity, the same broken and ineffective regulatory system is in charge of approving bioplastics for food use, and there is no reason to assume that these won’t raise just as many health concerns as conventional plastics have. Yet again, it will be an uphill battle to ban those that turn out to be dangerous.

A study published in Environmental Science & Technology traces the full impact of plastic production all the way back to its source for several types of plastics.[8]   Study author Amy Landis of the University of Pittsburgh says, “The main concern for us is that these plant-derived products have a green stamp on them just because they’re derived from biomass.  It’s not true that they should be considered sustainable. Just because they’re plants doesn’t mean they’re green.”

The researchers found that while making bioplastics requires less fossil fuel and has a lower impact on global warming, they have higher impacts for eutrophication, eco-toxicity and production of human carcinogens.  These impacts came largely from fertilizer use, pesticide use and conversion of lands to agricultural fields, along with processing the bio-feedstocks into plastics, the authors reported.

According to the study, polypropylene topped the team’s list as having the least life-cycle impact, while PVC and PET (polyethylene terephthalate) were ranked as having the highest life-cycle impact.

But as the Plastic Pollution Coalition tells us, it’s not so much changing the material itself that needs changing – it’s our uses of the stuff itself.  We are the problem:   If we continue to buy single-use disposable objects such as plastic bottles and plastic bags, with almost 7 billion people on the planet, our throwaway culture will continue to harm the environment, no matter what it’s made of.

The Surfrider Foundation

The Surfrider Foundation has a list of ten easy things you can do to keep plastics out of our environment:

1. Choose to reuse when it comes to  shopping bags and bottled water.  Cloth bags and metal or glass reusable  bottles are available locally at great prices.
2. Refuse single-serving packaging, excess  packaging, straws and other ‘disposable’ plastics.  Carry reusable utensils in your purse, backpack or car to use at bbq’s, potlucks or take-out  restaurants.
3. Reduce everyday plastics such as sandwich bags and juice cartons by replacing them with a reusable lunch bag/box that includes a thermos.
4. Bring your to-go mug with you to the coffee shop, smoothie shop or restaurants that let you use them. A great  way to reduce lids, plastic cups and/or plastic-lined cups.
5. Go digital! No need for plastic cds,  dvds and jewel cases when you can buy your music and videos online.
6. Seek out alternatives to the plastic  items that you rely on.
7. Recycle. If you must use plastic, try to choose #1 (PETE) or #2 (HDPE), which are the most commonly recycled      plastics. Avoid plastic bags and polystyrene foam as both typically have very low recycling rates.
8. Volunteer at a beach cleanup. Surfrider Foundation Chapters often hold cleanups monthly or more frequently.
9. Support plastic bag bans, polystyrene  foam bans and bottle recycling bills.
10. Spread the word. Talk to your family and friends about why it is important to Rise Above Plastics!

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[1] See for example: Idso, Craig, “Estimates of Global Food Production in the year 2050”, Center for the Study of Carbon dioxide and Global Change, 2011  AND  Wittwer, Sylvan, “Rising Carbon Dioxide is Great for Plants”, Policy Review, 1992  AND  http://www.ciesin.org/docs/004-038/004-038a.html

[2] D. B. Lobell and C. B. Field, Global scale climate-crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming, Env. Res. Letters 2, pp. 1–7, 2007 AND L. H. Ziska and J. A. Bunce, Predicting the impact of changing CO2 on crop yields: some thoughts on food, New Phytologist 175, pp. 607–618, 2007.

[3] Sikkema, Albert, “What we Don’t Know About Bioplastics”, Resource, December 2011; http://resource.wur.nl/en/wetenschap/detail/what_we_dont_know_about_bioplastics

[4] Chandler Slavin, “Bio-based resin report!” Recyclable Packaging Blog May 19, 2010 online at http://recyclablepackaging.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/bio-based-resin-report

[5] http://www.newint.org/features/2008/09/01/plastic-plants/

[6] L. Shen, “Product Overview and Market Projection of Emerging Bio- Based Plastics,” PRO-BIP 2009, Final Report, June 2009

[7] http://www.sustainablebiomaterials.org/index.php

[8] http://news.discovery.com/earth/bioplastic-plant-plastic-environment.html

Synthetic fibers and our oceans

First we heard about the world’s biggest garbage dump – made up of the detritus of our time: plastic bottles, plastic bags, DVD cases  – floating in our ocean. About 44 percent of all seabirds eat plastic, apparently by mistake, sometimes with fatal effects. And many marine species are affected by plastic garbage—animals are known to swallow plastic bags, which resemble jellyfish in mid-ocean, for example—according to a 2008 study in the journal Environmental Research by oceanographer and chemist Charles Moore, of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.[1]

Just as soon as we’ve had time to digest this news, we discover that the more improbable impact to the oceans from plastic comes from microscopic particles of plastic:   In fact, the mass of plastic the size of Texas often said to exist in the North Pacific is a myth, according to filmmaker Craig Leeson, who is producing a documentary (backed by David Attenborough and the UK-based Plastic Oceans Foundation)  on the spread of plastics in our oceans.   Instead, particles of plastic lurk in our oceans invisibly, in seemingly clear water.

“If you trawl for it with these special nets that they’ve developed, you come back with this glutinous mass — it’s microplastics that are in the water along with the plankton,” he said. “The problem is that it’s being mistaken for food and being eaten by plankton eaters, who are then eaten by bigger fish, and so it goes on, and it ends up on our dinner tables.”[2]

Charles Moore  has found that in some areas, plastic outweighs zooplankton – the ocean’s food base.[3]

It’s not just in the water:  Dr. Mark Browne, University College Dublin, and several colleagues gathered sand samples from 18 beaches on six continents for analysis. It turns out that every beach tested contained microplastics  (particles about the size of a piece of long grain of rice or smaller).  Charles Moore carries a bag of sand from a beach in Hawaii which he had analyzed – and found that it was 90% plastic.

Studies show that this contamination is getting worse – and link it with health conditions in humans including cancer, diabetes and immune disruption.

So how does this tie into our blog topic of textile issues?

It turns out that 80% of the microplastic found in the samples which the scientists collected on the beaches was fibrous:  polyester, acrylic and polyamides (nylon) fibers.  And the scientists are pretty sure the fibers come from fabric.

According to Science:  “Not a single beach was free of the colorful synthetic lint. Each cup of sand contained at least two fibers and as many as 31. The most contaminated samples came from areas with the highest population density, suggesting cities were an important source of the lint.”[4]

In order to test their idea that sewer discharges were the source of these the plastic discharges, the team worked with a local authority in New South Wales, Australia, and found that their suspicions were correct.  Sewage treatment does not remove the fibers.  But where do the fibers enter the waste stream?

Dr Browne and his colleagueProfessor Richard Thompson from the University of Plymouth carried out a number of experiments to see what fibers were contained in the water discharge from washing machines.

According to a study published in September’s Environmental Science and Technology [5], nearly 2,000 polyester fibers can shake loose from a single piece of clothing in the wash.

“It may not sound like an awful lot, but if that is from a single item from a single wash, it shows how things can build up.” [6]

“It suggests to us that a large proportion of the fibres we were finding in the environment, in the strongest evidence yet, was derived from sewerage as a consequence from washing clothes.”

On Cyber Monday last year, outdoor retailer Patagonia took out a full-page ad in The New York Times asking readers to “buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime.” Beside a photo of their iconic R2® fleece jacket, the headline read: “Don’t Buy This Jacket.”

We fully support Patagonia’s message that we should all pause before consuming anything – our consumption patterns are, after all, what got us into this mess.  “But there might be another reason to take a pass on that jacket besides Patagonia’s confession that the process of creating the R2® Jacket leaves behind “two-thirds of its weight in waste” on its way to their Reno warehouse — it turns out that tossing the jacket in the washer causes it to leave behind something else entirely — thousands of tiny plastic threads.” [7]

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[1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090820-plastic-decomposes-oceans-seas.html

[2] http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/filmmaker-sounds-alarm-over-ocean-of-plastic

[3] http://www.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Plastics-in-Oceans-More-Damaging-Than-Climate-Change–133190248.html

[4] http://grist.org/living/2011-12-07-how-microplastics-cause-macro-problems-for-the-ocean/

[5] Browne, Mark et al; “Accumulation of Microplstic on Shorelines Worldwide: Sources and Sinks”, Environmental Science and Technology, 2011, 45(21), pp 9175-9179.

[6] http://quierosaber.wordpress.com/tag/environmental-science-and-technology/

[7] http://grist.org/living/2011-12-07-how-microplastics-cause-macro-problems-for-the-ocean/

Bisphenol A in textile processing?

If you’ve bought baby bottles or water bottles recently, I’m sure you’ve seen a prominent “BPA Free” sign on the container.

BPA stands for Bisphenol A, a chemical often used to make clear, polycarbonate plastics (like water and baby bottles and also eyeglass lenses, medical devices, CDs and DVDs, cell phones and computers).  And though it has been formally declared a hazard to human health in Canada and banned in baby bottles in both Canada as well as the EU,  U.S. watchdog agencies have wildly differing views of BPA:  The National Toxicology Program (NTP) reported “some concern” that BPA harms the brain and reproductive system, especially in babies and fetuses.  The Food and Drug Administration declared that “at current levels of exposure” BPA is safe.

But consider this:  Of  the more than 100 independently funded experiments on BPA, about 90% have found evidence of adverse health effects at levels similar to human exposure. On the other hand, every single industry-funded study ever conducted — 14 in all — has found no such effects.  David Case made the argument in the February 1, 2009 issue of Fast Company that this is a story about protecting a multibillion-dollar market from deregulation.  But that’s beside the point  which is:    nobody disputes the fact that people are constantly exposed to BPAs and babies are most at risk.  It’s also undisputed that BPA mimics the female sex hormone estrogen, and that some synthetic estrogens can cause infertility and cancer.  If you’d like to read more about this click here.

Bisphenol A is now deeply imbedded in the products of modern consumer society.  This is important because it’s used in so many modern products (making it pretty much ubiquitous), and because it is extremely potent in disrupting fetal development. BPA contamination is also widespread in the environment. For example, BPA can be measured in rivers and estuaries at concentrations that range from under 5 to over 1900 nanograms/liter.(1)

What this all means is that most of  us live our lives in close proximity to bisphenol A.

Because it’s used to make plastic hard, I never thought it would have a place in the textile industry.  So it was with some concern that I came across articles which explain the use of bisphenol A in the manufacturing of synthetic fibers.

Producing synthetic fibers and yarns is almost impossible without applying a processing aid to the fibers during the extrusion and spinning processes.   The fibers and yarns are frequently in contact with hot surfaces, or they pass through hot ovens.  In order to withstand these extreme conditions, the yarns and fibers have processing aids or finishes applied.    This applied processing aid or ‘finish’, in addition to helping the yarns withstand extreme temperatures, also  reduces static electricity, fiber-fiber and metal-fiber friction, provides integrity to the filaments,  and altogether eases the manufacturing processes.

But because modern manufacturing equipment runs at higher speeds and subsequently at higher temperatures, the finish degrades in the high temperatures – yielding lower quality fibers -  and generates unwanted decomposition products.  These byproducts can be in the form of:

1. Toxic and nontoxic gases which have environmental and safety issues;
2. Liquids, which leave a sticky residue on the yarns,
3. Or they may form a solid varnish on hot surfaces that is very difficult to remove; the presence of the varnish interferes with continuous, efficient production leading to economic losses due to equipment shutdown and product failure.

To overcome the problems caused by the degradation of finishes, several additives are introduced to prevent or delay the reactions of oxidation and degradation.  Several classes of antioxidants are typically used as these additives in these finishes.

In a study sponsored by the National Textile Center, a research consortium of eight universities, three North Carolina State University professors investigated the thermal stability of textiles, specifically with respect to the antioxidants used in the finishes.  They investigated four different antioxidants – one of which is based on Bisphenol A. (2)

So I got interested, and began a bit of poking around for other mentions of Bisphenol A in the textile industry. I found two scientific references to use of bisphenol A in the production of  polyester fabrics.  Both reported similar use of Bisphenol A as this quote,  which states:  “ a woven polyester fabric was … finished with an aqueous compound  containing 5% polyethylene glycol bisphenol A ether diacrylate for 30 min at 60° to give a hygroscopic, antistatic fabric with good washfastness.” (3)

I found that Bisphenol A is used  in the production of flame retardants, and as an intermediate in the manufacture of polymers, fungicides, antioxidants (mentioned above), and dyes.   Because it is often used as an intermediate it’s hard to pin down, and manufacturers keep their ingredients trade secrets so we often will not know – unless somebody funds a study which is published.

I have not seen any studies which report finding Bisphenol A in a finished fabric, so this may be a tempest in a teacup.  But isn’t it worth noting that this chemical, which has been found in the blood of 95% of all Americans, and which some say may be the “new lead”, can exist in products in which we previously never would have thought to look?

(1)  http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/newscience/oncompounds/bisphenola/bpauses.htm

(2) Grant, Christine; Hauser, Peter; Oxenham, William, “Improving the Thermal Stability of Textile Processing Aids”,  www.ntcresearch.org/pdf-rpts/AnRp04/C01-NS08-A4.pdf

(3)  http://www.lookchem.com/cas-644/64401-02-1.html?countryid=0

Polyester and our health

Polyester is a very popular fabric choice – it is, in fact, the most popular of all the synthetics.  Because it can often have a synthetic feel, it is often blended with natural fibers, to get the benefit of natural fibers which breathe and feel good next to the skin, coupled with polyester’s durability, water repellence and wrinkle resistance.  Most sheets sold in the United States, for instance, are cotton/poly blends.

It is also used in the manufacture of all kinds of clothing and sportswear – not to mention diapers, sanitary pads, mattresses, upholstery, curtains  and carpet. If you look at labels, you might be surprised just how many products in your life are made from polyester fibers.

So what is this polyester that we live intimately with each day?

At this point, I think it would be good to have a basic primer on polyester production, and I’ve unabashedly lifted a great discussion from Marc Pehkonen and Lori Taylor, writing in their website diaperpin.com:

Basic polymer chemistry isn’t too complicated, but for most people the manufacture of the plastics that surround us is a mystery, which no doubt suits the chemical producers very well. A working knowledge of the principles involved here will
make us more informed users.

Polyester is only one compound in a class of petroleum-derived substances known as polymers. Thus, polyester (in common with most polymers) begins its life in our time as crude oil. Crude oil is a cocktail of components that can be separated by industrial distillation. Gasoline is one of these components, and the precursors of polymers such as polyethylene are also present.

Polymers are made by chemically reacting a lot of little molecules together to make one long molecule, like a string of beads. The little molecules are called monomers and the long molecules are called polymers.

Like this:

O + O + O + . . . makes OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Depending on which polymer is required, different monomers are chosen. Ethylene, the monomer for polyethylene, is obtained directly from the distillation of crude oil; other monomers have to be synthesized from more complex petroleum derivatives, and the path to these monomers can be several steps long. The path for polyester, which is made by reacting ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid, is shown below. Key properties of the intermediate materials are also shown.

The polymers themselves are theoretically quite unreactive and therefore not particularly harmful, but this is most certainly not true of the monomers. Chemical companies usually make a big deal of how stable and unreactive the polymers are, but that’s not what we should be interested in. We need to ask, what about the monomers? How unreactive are they?

We need to ask these questions because a small proportion of the monomer will never be converted into polymer. It just gets trapped in between the polymer chains, like peas in spaghetti. Over time this unreacted monomer can escape, either by off-gassing into the atmosphere if the initial monomers were volatile, or by dissolving into water if the monomers were soluble. Because these monomers are so toxic, it takes very small quantities to be harmful to humans, so it is important to know about the monomers before you put the polymers next to your skin or in your home. Since your skin is usually moist,
any water-borne monomers will find an easy route into your body.

Polyester is the terminal product in a chain of very reactive and toxic precursors. Most are carcinogens; all are poisonous. And even if none of these chemicals remain entrapped in the final polyester structure (which they most likely do), the manufacturing process requires workers and our environment to be exposed to some or all of the chemicals shown in the flowchart above. There is no doubt that the manufacture of polyester is an environmental and public health burden
that we would be better off without.

What does all of that mean in terms of our health?  Just by looking at one type of cancer, we can see how our lives are being changed by plastic use:

• The connection between plastic and breast cancer was first discovered in 1987 at Tufts Medical School in Boston by
  research scientists Dr. Ana Soto and Dr. Carlos Sonnenschein. In the midst of their experiments on cancer cell growth, endocrine-disrupting chemicals leached from plastic test tubes into the researcher’s laboratory experiment, causing a rampant proliferation of breast cancer cells. Their findings were published in Environmental Health Perspectives (1991)[1].
• Spanish researchers, Fatima and Nicolas Olea, tested metal food cans that were lined with plastic. The cans were also found to be leaching hormone disrupting chemicals in 50% of the cans tested. The levels of contamination were twenty-seven times more than the amount a Stanford team reported was enough to make breast cancer cells proliferate. Reportedly, 85% of the food cans in the United States are lined with plastic. The Oleas reported their findings in Environmental Health Perspectives (1995).[2]
• Commentary published in Environmental Health Perspectives in April 2010 suggested that PET might yield endocrine disruptors under conditions of common use and recommended research on this topic. [3]

These studies support claims that plastics are simply not good for us – prior to 1940, breast cancer was relatively rare; today it affects 1 in 11 women.  We’re not saying that plastics alone are responsible for this increase, but to think that they don’t contribute to it is, we think, willful denial.  After all, gravity existed before Newton’s father planted the apple tree and the world was just as round before Columbus was born.

Polyester fabric is soft, smooth, supple – yet still a plastic.  It contributes to our body burden in ways that we are just beginning to understand.  And because polyester is highly flammable, it is often treated with a flame retardant, increasing the toxic load.  So if you think that you’ve lived this long being exposed to these chemicals and haven’t had a problem, remember that the human body can only withstand so much toxic load - and that the endocrine disrupting chemicals which don’t seem to bother you may be affecting generations to come.

Agin, this is a blog which is supposed to cover topics in textiles:   polyester is by far the most popular fabric in the United States.  Even if made of recycled yarns, the toxic monomers are still the building blocks of the fibers.  And no mention is ever made of the processing chemicals used to dye and finish the polyester fabrics, which as we know contain some of the chemicals which are most damaging to human health.

Why does a specifier make the decision to use polyester – or another synthetic –  when all the data points to this fiber as being detrimental to the health and well being of the occupants?  Why is there not a concerted cry for safe processing chemicals at the very least?

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[1] http://www.bu-eh.org/uploads/Main/Soto%20EDs%20as%20Carcinogens.pdf

[2] http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.95103608

[3]  Sax, Leonard, “Polyethylene Terephthalate may Yield Endocrine Disruptors”,
Environmental Health Perspectives, April 2010, 118 (4): 445-448

When is recycled polyester NOT recycled polyester?

Fabric might be the only product I can think of which is known by its component parts, like cotton, silk, wool.  These words usually refer to the fabric rather than the fiber used to make the fabric.  We’ve all done it: talked about silk draperies, cotton sheets.  There seems to be a disassociation between the fibers used and the final product, and people don’t think about the process of turning cotton bolls or silkworm cocoons or flax plants into luxurious fabrics.

There is a very long, involved and complex process needed to turn raw fibers into finished fabrics.  Universities award degrees in textile engineering,  color chemistry or any of a number of textile related fields.  One can get a PhD in fiber and polymer science,  or study the design, synthesis and analysis of organic dyes and pigments.  Then there is the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) which has thousands of members in 60 different countries.  My point is that we need to start focusing on the process of turning raw textile fiber into a finished fabric – because therein lies all the difference!

And that brings me to recycled polyester, which has achieved pride of place as a green textile option in interiors.  We have already posted blogs about plastics (especially recycled plastics) last year (on 4.28.10, 5.05.10 and 5.12.10) so you know where we stand on the use of plastics in fabrics.  But the reality is that polyester bottles exist,  and recycling some of them  into fiber seems to be a better use for the bottles than landfilling them.

But today the supply chains for recycled polyester are not transparent, and if we are told that the resin chips we’re using to spin fibers are made from bottles – or from any kind of  polyester  -  we have no way to verify that.  Once the polymers are at the melt stage, it’s impossible to tell where they came from, because the molecules are the same.  So the yarn/fabric  could be virgin polyester or  it could be recycled.   Many so called “recycled” polyester yarns may not really be from recycled sources at all because – you guessed it! – the process of recycling is much more expensive than using virgin polyester.   And unfortunately not all companies are willing to pay the price to offer a real green product, but they sure do want to take advantage of the perception of green.   So when you see a label that says a fabric is made from 50% polyester and 50% recycled polyester – well, there is absolutely no way to tell if that’s true.

Some companies are trying to differentiate their brands by confirming that what they say is recycled REALLY is from recycled sources.  Unifi, which supplies lots of recycled resins and yarns, has an agreement with Scientific Certification Systems to certify that their Repreve yarns are made from 100% recycled content.  Then Unifi’s  “fiberprint” technology audits orders across the supply chain to verify that if Repreve is in a product , that it’s present in the right amounts.  But with this proprietary information there are still many questions Unifi doesn’t answer – the process is not transparent.  And it applies only to Unifi’s branded yarns.

Along with the fact that whether what you’re buying is really made from recycled yarns – or not – most people don’t pay any attention to the processing of the fibers.  Let’s just assume, for argument’s sake, that the fabric (which is identified as being made of 100% recycled polyester) is really made from recycled polyester.  But unless they tell you specifically otherwise, it is processed conventionally.  That means that the chemicals used during processing – the optical brighteners, texturizers, dyes, softeners, detergents, bleaches and all others – probably contain some of the chemicals which have been found to be harmful to living things.  The processing uses the same amount of water (about 500 gallons to produce 25 yards of upholstery weight fabric) – so the wastewater is probably expelled without treatment, adding to our pollution burden.  And there is no guarantee that the workers who produce the fabric are being paid a fair wage – or even that they are working in safe conditions.

One solution, suggested by Ecotextile News, is to create a tracking system that follows the raw material through to the final product.  They assumed that this would be very labor intensive and would require a lot of monitoring (all of which adds to the cost of production – and don’t forget, recycled polyester now is fashion’s darling because it’s so cheap!).

But now, Ecotextile News‘ suggestion has become a reality.   There is a new, third party certification which is addressing these issues.  The Global Recycle Standard (GRS), issued by Control Union, is intended to establish independently verified claims as to the amount of recycled content in a yarn. The GRS provides a track and trace certification system that ensures that the claims you make about a product can be officially backed up. It consists of a three-tiered system with the Gold standard requiring products to contain between 95 percent to 100 percent recycled material; the Silver standard requires products to be made of between 70 percent to 95 percent recycled product; and the Bronze standard requires products to have a minimum of 30 percent recycled content.

And – we think this is even more important -  in addition to the certification of the recycled content, the GRS looks at the critical issues of processing and workers rights.  This new standard holds the weaver to similar standards as found in the Global Organic Textile Standard:

• companies must keep full records of the use of chemicals, energy, water consumption and waste water treatment including the disposal of sludge;
• all prohibitied chemicals listed in GOTS are also prohibited in the GRS;
• all wastewater must be treated for pH, temperature, COD and BOD before disposal;
• there is an extensive section related to worker’s health and safety.

Polyester – to recycle or not to recycle?

I know it’s hard to imagine that the lovely fabric you’re eyeing for that chair – so soft and supple and luxurious – is just another plastic.

But because 60% of all polyethylene terephalate (PET – commonly called polyester) manufactured globally is destined to be made into fibers to be woven into cloth,  and because  polyester absolutely dominates the market, and because the textile industry has adopted using recycled polyester as their contribution to help us fight climate change, I think it’s important that we keep up with topics in recycling plastic.

”A Tribute to PET Bottles“ by Czech Sculptor Veronika Richterová

If using recycled polyester is good, then using “post consumer” PET bottles  is deemed the highest good.  But an interesting thing is happening with PET bottles and recycling, according to a study published in August, 2010, by SRI Consulting, which is, according to their web site,  the world’s leading business research service for the global chemical industry (www.sriconsulting.com).  The study, PET’s Carbon Footprint: To Recycle or Not to Recycle, caused more than a few ripples because it concluded that in many cases recycling bottles is no better — and could be worse — than landfilling.
The study’s key finding — widely reported — is that a recycling facility needs to recover at least 50 percent of the material it takes in if it is to achieve a more environmentally favorable carbon footprint than simply disposing directly to landfill.  The key is to improve yields , especially in sorting and to a lesser extent, in reprocessing.

This study addresses two key questions:

• should we recycle plastics?
• what are the carbon footprints of virgin (vPET)  and recycled PET (rPET)

In order to calculate the carbon footprint of various PET products, the study  calculated the carbon footprint for PET bottles used to package drinks from “cradle to grave,” i.e., extending from production of raw materials (primarily oil and gas) through to disposal of all wastes. The study considers a base case—bottles are used by consumers in northwest Europe, collected in a curbside system and sent on for sorting and recycling—and variations on that theme, including PET-only take-back (as currently practiced in Switzerland) as well as no recycling (with scenarios of “all landfill” and “all incineration”). Sensitivities of all major variables were assessed.

The study concludes that the curbside take-back systems are no better than landfill, in terms of carbon footprint. From a carbon-emissions standpoint, it would be just as well to bury used bottles as to recycle them, and either would be a better option than burning them.  The study found that landfilling PET bottles from certain systems rather than incinerating them could reduce carbon footprint by 30%.  Call it “carbon capture and storage” on an economy budget.  The key is to have the room – and if you read Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded you may be hard pressed to agree that there could ever be anyplace on the planet with room!

SRI report author Eric Johnson told FoodProductionDaily.com that transportation and processing costs, as well as low yields of pure PET (of below 50 per cent) from curbside recycling collections such as Germany’s DSD ‘Green Dot’ programme,  warranted SRI’s conclusion. (read article here)

Johnson said: “In terms of resource squandering [of oil in particular], if it takes more resources to recycle bottles …  than to produce units from virgin PET then this is irresponsible. If you’re going to recycle…do it properly.”

Jane Bickerstaffe, director of the UK Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment, concurred with Johnson’s point that rPET purity was a significant hindrance to worthwhile recycling, given that it affected recoverable PET levels: “Quality of recyclate is a big issue because the energy costs to separate out contaminants and clean the polymer are significant,” she said. (1)

As you might expect, there was a bit of an uproar over the study.

Casper van den Dungen,  EuPR PET working group chairman,  condemned SRI Consulting’s report:  “By applying SRI Consulting’s results we would …  lose valuable [rPET] material in landfills. The model used is intrinsically wrong, as in reality landfill should be avoided as a starting principle.”  (2)

Antonio Furfari from EuPR added: “The wrong signal is that landfill is good for environment. Landfilling is not acceptable for environmental and resources efficiency reasons, and CO2 is not the only environmental variable.” (3)

And yet, Jane Bickerstaffe had this comment: “It’s worth noting that landfilling inert materials like PET is just like putting back the sand, granite etc. that was dug out of a hole in the ground in the first place.  Inert materials are benign, whereas biodegradable materials such as cabbage leaves and potato peelings generate methane in landfill and have a negative impact on climate change.” (4)

The findings of this study hinge on how the plastics are collected.  Recycling programs using curbside collection typically displace less than 50% of new PET (polyethylene terephthalate). Community programs with plastic bottle take-back, mandated separate collection, or deposits on bottles tend to report much higher displacement rates. For regions that already have a recycling infrastructure, the aim should be to boost recycled PET (rPET) displacement of virgin PET (vPET) significantly above 50%.   The key seems to be in increasing yields rather than improving collection rates.  In countries where there is no recycling infrastructure, the best choice may well be to landfill bottles.”

It seems to me that, in consideration of “should we recycle plastics”  -  the answer is (as it almost always is): “it depends”.   Should we use only carbon footprint as a yardstick?  Sometimes you have to pull back and take in the big picture; as one blogger put it, “It’s unconscionable to pay out the nose for foreign oil so that we can produce more soda bottles to package up products that make our population fat and unhealthy.”

And how does all that trash get into the oceans?  How does that figure into this equation?

Hey, I never promised answers.

(1)  Bouckley, Ben; “Plastic recycling body slams report advising countries to landfill PET bottles”, FoodProductiondaily.com, September 2, 2010

(2)  Ibid.

(3)  Ibid.

(4)  Ibid.

Man-made synthetic fibers

For millennia mankind depended on the natural world to supply its fiber needs.  But scientists, as a result of extensive research, were able to replicate naturally occurring animal and plant fibers by creating fibers from synthetic chemicals. In the literature, it is often noted that there are three kinds of man-made fibers: those made by “transformation of natural polymers” (also called regenerated cellulosics), those made from synthetic polymers and those made from inorganic materials (These include the fibers made of glass, metal, ceramics and carbon.) But by far the largest group of man made synthetic fibers being produced today are made from synthetic polymers, so we’ll concentrate on those in this post.

Man made  fibers from synthetic polymers  are created using polymerization of various chemical inputs to create polymers.  Polymerization is the process of combining many small molecules into a large molecule – a polymer.    Polymers are simply large molecules composed of repeating structural units.  Polymers used for synthetic fibers are produced from intermediates (which in turn have been produced from crude oil) and applying a catalyst.  Key intermediates are p-Xylene, teraphtalic acid, ethylene glycol and acrylonitrile;  catalysts – manganese, cobalt and antimony oxide –  are used to control the processes.

Polymers are the building blocks of synthetic fibers – and of many other things.   They are the basis of life and play an essential and ubiquitous role in our everyday life, ranging from familiar synthetic plastics to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are essential for life.  Natural polymeric materials such as shellac, amber and natural rubber have been in use for centuries. Biopolymers, such as proteins and nucleic acids, play crucial roles in biological processes. A variety of other natural polymers exist, such as cellulose, which is the main constituent of cotton and wood.

Synthetic polymers include vulcanized rubber, Bakelite and neoprene (and many more) in addition to polymers used in fibers:   polyester, nylon, polystyrene, polyethylene, PVC, and polyacrylonitrile (known as acrylic).

Synthetic fibers account for about half of all fiber usage, with applications in every field of fiber and textile technology.  Four synthetic fibers – nylon, polyester, acrylic and polyolefin – dominate the market. These four account for approximately 98% by volume of global synthetic fiber production.  But make no mistake, polyester is king:   polyester alone accounted for around 80% of the global market share of man made fibers.[1] Polyester has become the fiber of choice (sometimes blended with cotton) in garment production.  As recently as 1990, world polyester production totaled 20 billion pounds.  In 2002, production had more than doubled to 46 billion pounds – and was 61.5 billion pounds in 2009. [2] Polyester fiber consumption increased at an annual growth rate of 6.2% between 1998 and 2008,[3] although demand has recently moderated as a result of the global economic slowdown.

The raw materials used in synthetic production are mainly produced by large chemical companies which are sometimes integrated down to the crude oil refinery where p-Xylene is the base material used to produce other intermediaries.  For example p-Xylene is used to produce teraphtalic acid.   Major producers of teraphtalic acid include:

• BP
• Reliance (India-based Reliance just bought Trevira GmbH&Co)
• Eastman Chemicals
• Mitsui
• Sinopec
• SK-Chemicals

Among the world’s largest polyester producers are the following companies:

• DuPont
• Eastman
• Invista
• Wellman
• M&G Group
• Mitsui
• Mitsubishi
• Reliance
• Teijin
• Toray
• Hyosung
• Huvis
• Jiangsu Hengli Chemical Fiber
• Jiangsu Sanfangxian Industry
• NanYa Plastics

Synthetic fiber production has definitely moved to Asian countries.   As stated in Textile World :   “the critical mass of fiber manufacturing from the industrialized West to the developing East is a study in comparative economics and social realities.”  In 1990, China represented barely 8% of total man-made production; by 2002 it produced almost 30% (almost a tie with the US and Europe).   India is also making a pitch to be a player: From a virtually nonexistent position in 1990 to currently 5%, with programs in place to expand this further.   According to Textile World, the world of polyester production has begun to resemble a monopoly, led by China.  “The speed with which Asia has dominated fiber production is astounding. The commitment is complete, and the world man-made fiber industry will never be the same – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is obvious that production asset investments of the recent decade are world-class in efficiency and quality – with the world consumer receiving the benefits. The industrialized world must move on to a higher-return economy and let the developing world be satisfied by lower returns on investment, either through lower labor or local funds costs; or government-subsidized manufacturing aimed at employment, and/or accumulation of strong currencies to be used for continued economic development. Either way, the new nexus of the man-made fiber business is Asia.”

Since polyester is the king of synthetics (and because the data is available!) let’s look at how polyester is formed.

 

POLYMERIZATION:
First, the polymer is created; in the case of polyester, the polymer is made by heating either dimethyl teraphthalate (DMT)  or terephthalic acid (TPA) with ethylene glycol in the presence of a catalyst (ususally antimony) at 536 º F for 30 minutes at atmospheric pressure and then for 10 hours under vacuum. The excess of ethylene glycol is distilled off.  The resulting chemical, a monomer (single, non-repeating molecule) alcohol, is combined with terephthalic acid and raised to a temperature of 472°F (280°C). Newly-formed polyester, which is clear and molten, is extruded through a slot to form long ribbons.

DRYING: After the polyester emerges from polymerization, the long molten ribbons are allowed to cool until they become brittle. The material is cut into tiny chips and completely dried to prevent irregularities in consistency.

SPINNING:  Fibers are classified according to the type of spinning that the polymer undergoes: this can be melt spinning, dry spinning or wet spinning:

1. Melt spinning is the simplest of these three methods:   In melt spinning, the polymer chips are melted at 500 – 518ºF to form a syrup-like solution.  The solution is put in a metal container called a spinneret and forced through its tiny holes. The number of holes in the spinneret determines the size of the yarn, as the emerging fibers are brought together to form a single strand. Melt spinning is used with polymers such as nylon, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, cellulose triacetate, and polyethylene terephthalate, and in the multifilament extrusion of polypropylene.
2. Dry spinning:  the polymer is first dissolved in a solvent. The polymer solution  is then extruded through the spinnerets. The solvent is evaporated with hot air and collected for reuse. The fiber then passes over rollers, and is stretched to orient the molecules and increase the fiber strength. Cellulose acetate, cellulose triacetate, acrylic, modacrylic, aromatic nylon, and polyvinyl chloride are made by dry spinning.
3. In wet spinning, the polymer solution (i.e., polymer dissolved in a solvent as in dry spinning) is spun into a coagulating solution to precipitate the polymer. This process has been used with acrylic, modacrylic, aromatic nylon, and polyvinyl chloride fibers.

For each pound of fiber produced with solvent spinning processes (dry or wet), a pound of polymer is dissolved in about 3 pounds of solvent.  So the capture and recovery of these solvents is an integral part of the solvent spinning process.  At present, most solvents are recovered, however emissions from the spinning operation are a significant consideration.  But air pollution emissions from polyester fiber production also include polymer dust from drying operations, volatilized residual monomer, fiber lubricants (in the form of fume or oil smoke) and the burned polymer and combustion products from cleaning the spinning equipment.

At the spinning stage, other chemicals may be added to the solution to achieve various effects such as making the material flame retardant, antistatic, or colorful (by adding dye chemicals).  Because these fibers are created from crude oil, they’re highly flammable (in fact, they’re considered an accelerant)  and pose a great threat for fire injury.  The development of a durable flame retardant for synthetics was key in the safe consumer use of synthetic fibers.

It is at the spinning stage that the two varieties of polyester fibers are created: filament and staple fibers:

• FILAMENT:  When polyester emerges from the spinneret, it is soft and easily elongated up to five times its original length.  To create filament, the fibers are stretched.  The stretching forces the random polyester molecules to align in a parallel formation. This increases the strength, tenacity, and resilience of the fiber. This time, when the filaments dry, the fibers become solid and strong instead of brittle.   Stretched, or drawn,  fibers may vary greatly in diameter and length, depending on the characteristics desired of the finished material. Also, as the fibers are drawn, they may be textured or twisted to create softer or duller fabrics. After the polyester yarn is drawn, it is wound on large bobbins or flat-wound packages, ready to be woven into material.
• STAPLE:  To create staple fiber, the spinneret has many more holes than when the production is filament fiber.  The rope like bundles of polyester that emerge are called tow.
  • Newly-formed tow is quickly cooled in cans that gather the thick fibers. Several lengths of tow are gathered and then drawn on heated rollers to three or four times their original length.
  • CRIMPING: Drawn tow is then fed into compression boxes, which force the fibers to fold like an accordion, at a rate of 9-15 crimps per inch (3-6 per cm). This process helps the fiber hold together during the later manufacturing stages.
  • SETTING: After the tow is crimped, it is heated at 212-302°F (100-150°C) to completely dry the fibers and set the crimp. Some of the crimp will unavoidably be pulled out of the fibers during the following processes.
  • CUTTING:  Following heat setting, tow is cut into shorter lengths. Polyester that will be blended with cotton is cut in 1.25-1.50 inch (3.2-3.8 cm) pieces; for rayon blends, 2 inch (5 cm) lengths are cut. For heavier fabrics, such as carpet, polyester filaments are cut into 6 inch (15 cm) lengths.

By and large, synthetic fibers are used for their utility in specific markets.

Polyester is difficult and expensive to dye, but has attributes that make it ideal for blending with cotton and other natural fibers.  Easy care of the permanent press fabric made polyester doubleknits extremely popular in the late 1960s.

However, polyester has suffered an “image problem” since that time, and clothes made out of polyester were often devalued and even ridiculed.  Polyester has the advantage of being very cheap to produce, but it is a much less attractive fiber to live with when compared to the inherent breathability, moisture absorption capabilities and heat moderation inherent in natural fibers.  Polyesters have the advantage in wash-and-wear properties, wrinkle resistance – and in durability.   Manufacturers tried to make polyester easier to use in garments by blending polyester with cotton, wool or other natural fibers.   Several new forms of polyester introduced in the early 1990s may help revitalize the image of polyester. A new form of polyester fiber, called microfiber, was introduced to the public in 1991.  Microfibers have diameters that are less than typical fibers; they are about half the diameter of fine silk fiber, one-quarter the diameter of fine wool, and one hundred times finer than human hair. Microfibers allow a fabric to be woven that is lightweight and strong. They can be tightly woven so that wind, rain, and cold do not easily penetrate. Rainwear manufactures use microfibers for this reason. They also have the ability to allow perspiration to pass through them. In addition, microfibers are very flexible because their small fibers can easily slide back and forth on one another. The first fabric made from microfiber was Ultrasuade, in which short polyester microfibers were imbedded into a polyurethane base. Today, microfibers are manufactured primarily from polyesters, nylon, and acrylic fibers. They are used under various trade names to make a variety of products, such as clothing, hosiery, bedding, and scarves.

Textile researchers at North Carolina State University are developing a form of polyester that may be as strong as Kevlar, a superfiber material used to make bulletproof vests.

Nylon, the granddaddy of man-made fibers, seems to be losing share to polyester, overwhelmed by sheer volume if not performance. In carpets, staple nylon gradually is being replaced by filament; tires increasingly use polyester over nylon; and many woven industrial and apparel fabrics seem to favor polyester. Nylon’s dyeability is an advantage, but not sufficiently so to overcome the supply and variants available in polyester.

Acrylic gradually is losing the price battle with polyester and increasingly is relegated to bulk and wool-substitute end-uses.

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[1]http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=137418

[2] Luke, John; Fiber World: A Polyester Saga Geography and All; Textile World; http://www.textileworld.com/Articles/2004/September/Fiber_World/A_Polyester_Saga_Geography_And_All.html

[3] http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=137418

Plastics – part 3: even more about why recycling is not working

I was going to go on to other subjects, but just saw in the Seattle Times that the whale that washed up on a West Seattle beach last month was discovered to have 3.2 lbs. of garbage in its belly – including 20 plastic bags and 37 other  kinds of plastic (read entire article here.)

If you’ve been reading my posts for the past two weeks (On 5.5.10 and 4.28.10), it has hopefully dawned on you that we have a dilemma with regard to plastic:   Recycling presents problems, yet not recycling hardly seems an option.  Whether you see plastic as a boon or a bane, plastic is the fastest-growing portion of our waste stream and now makes up the second-largest category by volume (next to paper) of trash going into our landfills, according to a draft report prepared for the California Integrated Waste Management Board called the “Plastics White Paper.”

Eco Nature Care did a post on plastic recycling, and highlighted many of the reasons recycling isn’t catching on in this country.  I’ve copied the post below (and you can read it here):

Plastics make up 17.8 % by volume  of what’s thrown into California landfills. While consumers are increasingly snapping those Evian bottles off the shelves, they toss the empties into the trash bin more often than the recycling bin. The recycling rate for plastic bottles is only 16 percent — miserably low compared to glass and aluminum — even though consumers can redeem their used plastic bottles for the same CRV (California Refund Value) rate as other containers.

California cities and counties have an incentive to recycle as much material as possible. A 1989 law requires that municipalities reduce the trash they send to landfills by 50%  or face hefty fines.

Diversion, then, becomes the magic word. But from the point of view of recyclers, accepting some types of plastic is more trouble than it’s worth. For example, plastics coded 3 through 7 — cottage cheese, tofu, salsa and yogurt containers — are particularly difficult to recycle profitably. So why take these additional containers at all, especially when their volume is low? According to Mark Loughmiller, executive director of the Arcata Community Recycling Center, the answer is public pressure.

“I fought it. There are no domestic markets for it. At a point you get tired of being harangued by people coming in trying to quote unquote “do the right thing.’”  They don’t want to throw anything away, he said, and that’s all well and good. But a more appropriate position might be, “I shouldn’t buy it in the first place,” he suggested.

The plastics trail

The plastics collected at the Arcata sites are baled and stored for about a month until they fill a 12-ton truckload, Loughmiller said. The truck typically contains 5 tons of milk bottles (the number 2s), 7 tons of soda and water bottles (the number 1s), and about three-quarters of a ton of the so-called “mixed plastics,” the 3s through 7s, which are baled together.

They then make their way to Ming’s Recycling in Sacramento (which also takes all of the plastics from Humboldt Sanitation in McKinleyville). Kenny Luong, president of Ming’s, said his center has 40 or 50 suppliers in California and another 30 to 40 elsewhere in the United States and Canada. Almost all of the plastics that come into Ming’s are sold to brokers in Hong Kong, who pay to transport it via container ship from the Port of Oakland to China. The transport is cheap because China exports far more to the United States than we do to them; the ships traveling back to China have plenty of room.

The mixed plastics don’t make Luong very much money, he said, which explains why the cities of Arcata and Eureka get nothing for their mixed plastic bales. (A ton of milk jugs, by contrast, pays about $200; a ton of soda bottles, $160.)

“It’s enough to cover the transport to the harbor, that’s pretty much it,” Luong said of the mixed plastics. He would prefer not to take those at all. But a change to state law in 2000 expanded the list of beverages included in the California Redemption Value program. And if the bottle has a “CRV” on it — even if it’s a number 3 or 4 plastic — a certified recycling center must accept it and pay the refund to the consumer.

“It’s really a pain in the butt,” Luong said. “There aren’t a whole lot, but we are required to purchase them by law. It prompted us to find a market for it.”

That market, it turns out, consists of recyclers in Shanghai and Guangdong province. Luong said he has never seen the China facilities and knows little about them. “Once it’s loaded on the ship, it’s out of my hands.”

Recycling in Guangdong

One of his brokers has visited some of the locations in China where plastics from Humboldt end up. Doug Spitzer is the owner of Monarch Enterprises of Santa Cruz, which is affiliated with the gargantuan paper company Boise Cascade. He sells plastics to Chinese recyclers and ran a plastic film-recycling factory himself outside of Guangdong in the early 1990s.

“Most of our material goes through Hong Kong into that closest province [to Hong Kong], which is Guangdong,” Spitzer said. One factory will typically limit itself to one type of plastic, and one village might have most of its residents involved in that type of recycling, he said.

“Within this one town outside of Guangzhou [in Guangdong province], when I was there, my partners were telling me there were at least 3,000 plastic film processors there, and they’re right next door to each other. It’s a small village; they all process it.” The facilities range from a mom-and-pop operation that takes one container-load per month to very large, comparatively modern factories.

One Spitzer saw when he visited four years ago involved soda bottles: The workers would break open the bales, women would sort the bottles by color, a “guy with a machete” cut the tops off, two other men scraped labels off, then the bottles were ground into pellets and melted down. 

It was not the kind of place that would be approved by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Spitzer said.

“OSHA would go nuts. The place is noisy, it’s crowded, it’s just amazing. Not that they’re killing people off. They’re safe, and all the time we were running the factory there were no major accidents,” he said. “Do people engage in unsafe practices to try to make a living? Yeah, all over the world.”

He said his current business provides a valuable service. “What I’m doing is I’m supplying a raw material that can go to a Third World country.”

There are some facilities in the United States that recycle soda bottles and milk jugs “if the material is clean enough,” said Luong of Ming’s Recycling. But the market for recycled plastic makes it difficult, if not impossible, for recyclers to make any money. The reasons are many. Since plastic is made from petroleum, virgin plastic makers have a large supply of raw material available to them. When manufacturers can buy virgin plastic pellets or flakes for about the same amount of money as recycled plastic, there is little incentive to use recycled (the italics are mine!).

There are also limits to the products that can be made from recycled plastic. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not allow food containers to be made into new food containers because they can’t be heated at temperatures high enough to sterilize them. (The FDA has said it will allow a layer of recycled plastic sandwiched between layers of virgin plastic in soda bottles.)

A numbers game

Plastic recyclers must also face the issue of contamination. Recycling the number 1 (PET) plastics — the soda bottles — could work economically were it not for the number 3s that enter the mix, said Peter Anderson, a recycling consultant in Madison, Wis., who has worked with state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California. Number 3 plastics are polyvinyl chloride, or PVC for short.

“PVC presents enormous problems because it looks just like PET physically,” Anderson said. “A single bottle of PVC will contaminate the entire [10,000-bottle] load” aesthetically, causing the new PET bottles made with the material to be yellowed or, with more contamination, to have black streaks, he said. There are X-ray scanning machines that can detect the PVC intruders, but those are too expensive for many recyclers.

“You can’t make plastics recycling work with PVC in the mix,” Anderson said. So, he argued, taking the 3 through 7 plastics makes no economic sense. “Who the hell knows what China’s doing with them? I don’t think anyone can make a case without a smirk on their face that they’re recycling 3 through 7s.”

He called the idea of recycling all plastics “a serious mistake.”

Some recyclers take the 3 through 7 plastics because, they reason, they’ll get more of the “good stuff” — the soda bottles and milk bottles — if they advertise that they accept a wider range of recyclables. Eel River Disposal in Fortuna, for example, accepts numbers 1, 2 and 3, which they send to Smurfit Recycling in Oakland.

Eel River owner Harry Hardin said he doesn’t collect enough of the number 3s to make a separate bale with it, so he bales it with the number 2s. “I even put some 4s in there,” he said.

Asked about the PVC contamination problem, Hardin said, “It depends what market you send it into. Smurfit’s — I’m not quite sure what they do with theirs. But they will allow some number 3 and 2 together.”

Not so, said Don Kurtz, plant manager for Smurfit in Oakland. “If we identify that there are 3s in there, we reject the bale,” he said. Eel River was recently told to come and get one of their bales that was turned away for that very reason. “We really don’t want number 3s. It really doesn’t make sense for us to mess with it.” (Unlike Ming’s, Smurfit is not legally bound to take any particular recyclables because the company is classified as a “processor,” not a recycling facility.)

Another Humboldt County recycler sells his material to a middleman in a different part of the state. The man, who did not want to be identified, said he does not collect enough 3 through 7 numbered plastics to bale them separately, so he mixes them with the bales for the numbers 1 and 2. “Don’t advertise that,” he said. “It’s garbage plastic, but a lot of people like to recycle it.” His company then sells it to a broker who sends it overseas.

“If they’re putting it in with the PET [number 1s], I guarantee they’re getting thrown out,” said the broker, Patty Moore of the Sonoma-based Moore Recycling Associates.

Destination landfill

All in all, plastic recycling appears to fall far short of its promise. Even if recycled under the best of conditions, a plastic bottle or margarine tub will probably have only one additional life. Since it can’t be made into another food container, your Snapple bottle will become a “durable good,” such as carpet or fiberfill for a jacket. Your milk bottle will become a plastic toy or the outer casing on a cell phone. Those things, in turn, will eventually be thrown away.

“With plastics recycling, we’re just extending the life of a material. We’re not creating a perpetual loop for that material,” like we do with glass and aluminum recycling, said Loughmiller, the Arcata recycling director.

“I think people really need to have a reality check on plastics,” said Puckett of the Basel Action Network. “The mantra has been, `divert from the landfill.’ What we’ve been saying is, divert to what? Dump it on the Chinese? Plastics recycling needs to be looked at with a jaundiced eye,” he said. “It’s not what it’s touted to be.”

If you’ve ever looked on the bottom of your plastic juice bottle,  detergent bottle or tofu tub, you’ve seen the little triangle of arrows with a number inside. That symbol — contrary to popular belief — does not indicate that a container is recyclable.

Back in 1988, “the trade groups managed to get into law the resin [type of plastic] identification,” said Mark Loughmiller, executive director of the Arcata Community Recycling Center. The numbers indicate which category of plastic the container is made from.

“The triangled arrows imply recyclability,” Loughmiller said. “The plastic industry denied it was trying to mislead the public and cause confusion.” But that’s what happened, he said. People regularly come to his center and demand to know why their plastic lawn chair with a number on the bottom can’t be recycled.

And why can’t it? Because, even in one category, such as plastics labeled with a number 2 (high density polyethylene or HDPE), there are many variations. Milk jugs and yogurt containers, for example, may both be made with HDPE, but because the recycling process requires melting of the old containers, and they melt at different temperatures, they may be incompatible.

Plastics – part 2: Why recycling is not the answer

In Plastics, Part 1 (last week’s post; click here to read it) I tried to give a summary of why plastics are not such a good thing.  The Plastic Pollution coalition has a list of basic concepts about plastic.  Click here to read the expanded version:

• Plastic is forever
• Plastic is poisoning our food chain
• Plastic affects human health
• Recycling is not a sustainable solution

Yet there seems to be no end to our demand for plastics.   In one year alone, from 1995 – 96, plastic packaging increased by 1,000,000,000 lbs.  And despite recycling efforts, for every 1 ton increase in plastic recycling, there was a 14 ton increase in new plastic production.

I tried to explain some of the roadblocks to plastic recycling efforts.   We have all heard that recycling is good for the environment,  and it’s hard to argue with the intuitively correct reasoning that if we recycle we reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we conserve energy and emissions and we keep bottles out of the landfills.

And what about the lighter weight of plastic bottles?  Surely there are benefits in shipping lighter weight bottles  – giving plastic bottles a lower overall carbon footprint?  Well, here’s the thing:  there are environmental trade offs, just like in life.  Even if we accept that plastics are more carbon efficient than alternative materials (glass) in transportation, we’re still talking about vast amounts of carbon emissions.  Plastics use releases at least 100 million tons of CO2 – some say as much as 500 million tons – into the atmosphere each year.  That’s the equivalent of the annual emissions from 10 – 45% of all U.S. drivers.  Plastic manufacturing also contributes 14% of the national total of toxic (i.e., other than CO2) releases to our atmosphere; producing a 16 oz PET bottle generates more than 100 times the amount of toxic emissions than does making the same size in glass.  But the critical point is that it’s definitely cheaper to ship liquids in plastic rather than in glass.  And it’s also cheaper for manufacturers to use virgin plastic than a recycled plastic.

These rather alarming CO2 numbers could be much lower, we understand, if only Americans recycled more than the paltry 7% of plastic which is recycled today.  We could cut our usage of virgin material by one third – and that means an annual savings of 30 to 150 million tons of CO2.

So why aren’t Americans recycling more?  Although our plastic consumption has grown by a factor of 30 since the 1960s, recycling has grown by a factor of just two.  Is this just because we don’t take the time to separate recyclable plastics from general waste, or because we don’t take the time to throw the bottle into the proper recycling bin?  What about companies that use the plastic – they are not clamoring to spend more to use recycled plastic (again that bugaboo “cost”) so they continue to demand virgin plastic.

When Rhode Island enacted comprehensive recycling legislation in 1986, including bans on plastic bottles – the plastic industry responded by introducing their resin codes, in part (some say) to deflect attention from the virgin polyester production and encourage an environmental spin on the plastics.  The plastics industry’s  “chasing arrows” symbol surrounding a number (those resin codes) were “deliberately misleading” according to Daniel Knapp, director of Berkeley’s Urban Ore.  “The plastics industry has wrought intentional confusion with that symbol”, said Bill Sheehan, director of GrassRoots Recycling Network.  Unlike glass and aluminum, plastic has no system for recycling – no infrastructure to sell it, no markets to buy it, no facilities to make it.  “In short, the arrows led nowhere.”(1)

According to many, these codes just gave plastic an environmental patina, which the industry was quick to use.  “Several states have postponed or backed off from restrictive packaging legislation as a result of the voluntary coding system” – this gleeful statement from a 1988 newsletter of the Council on Plastics and Packaging in the Environment.

The industry’s critics say that it won’t do anything to support recycling.  Mel Weiss, an independent plastics broker, sees the industry focused on PR and not at all interested in recycling.  He says:  “the American Plastics Council (APC), a trade group representing virgin-resin producers, won’t do anything to support recycling. If they had a choice between selling one pound of virgin and 22 tons of recycled, they’d sell the virgin. All they’re doing is masking what they’re doing with an expensive ad campaign.”

Here’s the irony:  it was the veneer of recyclability – cultivated by the plastics industry – that led to this explosion of plastic use.

The plastics industry, spearheaded by the American Plastics Council (APC), has sponsored campaigns to convince the public that recycling is easy, economical and a big success.  They are a “responsible choice in a more environmentally conscious world”, according to the APC.  Between November 1992 and July 1993, the APC spent $18 million in a national advertising campaign to “Take Another Look at Plastics.” (Environmental Defense Fund, October 21, 1997, “Something to hide: The sorry state of plastics recycling.”)  Examples of how plastics “leave a lighter footprint on the planet” include the argument that plastic grocery bags are lighter and create less waste by volume than paper sacks, the industry said. And the fact that plastics are so lightweight and durable enables manufacturers to use less energy and generate less waste in production processes, plastic promoters said.

In addition to the American Plastics Council, the American Chemical Council (ACC) also spends millions to defend the chemicals produced by their members to make plastics. – including lobbying against any bills that would add a few cents to each bag or bottle to encourage returns and recycling efforts.    According to Lisa Kaas Boyle, Board Member of Heal the Bay, the ACC has hired the same advisors who defended the tobacco industry to formulate a strategy to promote and defend the petrochemical industry.  That strategy is based on preventing legislation to curtail single use plastics  (SUPs – i.e., soda bottles etc.) and to generate positive press on the promotion of recycling as the solution to plastic pollution.  This approach makes the industry look environmental while continuing with business as usual.

Because most manufacturers don’t take back their products, there’s often little opportunity to sell collected plastic. It is true that the West Coast  is blessed with domestic and overseas markets that have made recycling of #1 and #2 plastics – soda bottles and milk jugs – somewhat easier. But even here, metals and paper are the real money-makers.

“Plastics is the least profitable part of the business,” said Kevin McCarthy, regional recycling manager at Waste Management Inc.,  ”and it may not even be fair to say that it is profitable at all.”

Like McCarthy’s operation, many recyclers will collect plastic only to meet contractual requirements from government agencies. The impetus to collect certain types of plastic comes from residents. But these plastics often have no market for reuse. Recyclers call it “junk plastic,”  – stuff that gets collected only “because residents wanted it collected because they watched the commercials on TV extolling the recyclability of plastic,” said one recycling official who insisted on anonymity.

In Europe, plastic recycling rates hover around 16.5%, largely because there are strict regulations from Europe’s “End of Life Directive”, in which manufacturers must take more responsibility for the processing of waste from their products.  In the U.S., efforts come largely from voluntary programs within companies, such as Wal Mart’s campaign to reduce the size of packages and increase their use of recycled materials.   The  U.S. government is highly unlikely to enact recycling legislation.  We in Seattle  voted last summer on a citizen sponsored plastic bag tax (we called it a fee)  of $0.20 per disposable bag coupled with a ban on Styrofoam.  The American Chemistry Council spent more than $1.4 million to defeat the bill – and they succeeded.

One aspect of recycling which is little known to consumers is the fact that almost all of the plastics we recycle, regardless of type, end up in China, where worker safety standards are virtually nonexistent and materials are sorted and processed under dirty, primitive conditions. The economics surrounding plastic recycling — unlike those for glass and aluminum — make it a dubious venture for U.S. companies.

(1)  Dan Rademacher, “Manufacturing a Myth: The plastics recycling ploy”, Terrain Magazine, Winter 1999

Plastics – part 1

Philosopher George Carlin once said,   “Man is only here to give the planet something it didn’t have:   Plastic.”

And man has done well:  plastic is ubiquitous in our world today and the numbers are growing.   We produce 20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years ago.

The production and use of plastics has a range of environmental impacts. Plastics production requires significant quantities of resources:  it uses land and water, but the primary resource is fossil fuels, both as a raw material and to deliver energy for the manufacturing process. It is estimated that 8% of the world’s annual oil production is used as either feedstock or energy for production of plastics.

Plastics production also involves the use of potentially harmful chemicals, which include cadmium, lead, PVC, and other pollutants which are added as stabilizers, plasticizers or colorants. Many of these have not undergone environmental risk assessment and their impact on human health and the environment is currently uncertain.  Finally, plastics manufacture  produces waste and emissions. In the U.S., fourteen percent of airborne toxic emissions come from plastics production.  The average plastics plant can discharge as much as 500 gallons of  wastewater per minute – water contaminated with process chemicals.  (The overall environmental impact varies according to the type of plastic and the production method employed.)

Every second, 200 plastic bottles made of virgin, non-renewable resources are land-filled – and every hour another 2.5 million bottles are thrown away.  And though I can’t get a definitive answer about whether the plastics decompose (because although they don’t biodegrade they do photodegrade – when exposed to UV radiation, over time they break down into smaller and smaller bits, leaching their chemical components), most sources, if they do accept that plastic can degrade, admit that nobody knows how long it really takes because most plastics have only been around for 50 years or so  -  but estimates range into the thousands of years.   (To read how scientists make estimates for plastic decomposition rates, click here. )

How do we cope with this plastic onslaught?

Recycling is the most widely recognized concept in solid waste management – and the environmental benefits of recycling plastic are touted elsewhere.  I’ll just give you the highlights here:

• It reduces the amount of garbage we send to landfills:  Although plastic accounts for only 8% of the waste by weight, they occupy about 20% of the volume in a landfill due to their low bulk density.
• It conserves energy:  recycling 1 pound of PET conserves 12,000 BTUs of heat energy; and the production of recycled PET uses 1/3 less energy than is needed to produce virgin PET.
• It reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• It helps conserve natural resources.
  

But it should be remembered that some items are much better candidates for recycling than others.  Aluminum recycling, for example, uses 95% less energy than producing aluminum from bauxite ore, and aluminum cans can be recycled into new aluminum cans.  There is no limit to the amount of times an aluminum container can be recycled. The PET bottle, which is used for everything from water to wine,  was patented in 1973 – that’s only 27 years ago!  Prior to that most bottles were of glass.  Glass, like aluminum,  is infinitely recyclable.  As late as 1947, virtually 100% of all beverage bottles were returnable; and states with bottle deposit laws have 35 – 40% less litter by volume.  I found this image while looking for Earth Day anniversary images, and think it’s a great example of how corporations will slant anything to their purposes.  (Please note that the company in question is Coca Cola – I’ll have a lot to say about Coke’s recycling efforts in 2010 in upcoming blog posts):

There are different costs and benefits for other recyclable items: plastic, paper, electronics, motor oil… They each have their own individual problems.

With reference to the textile industry, 60% of all the virgin polyethelene terephthalate (PET) produced globally is used to make fibers, while only 30% goes into bottle production.  As I explained in a previous blog,  the textile industry has adopted recycled polyester as the fiber of choice to promote its green agenda.   What I want to do is expose this choice for what it is: a self-serving attempt to convince the public that a choice of a recycled polyester fabric is actually a good eco choice – when the reality is that this is another case of expediency and greed over any authentic attempts to find a sustainable solution.  My biggest complaint with the industry’s position is that there is no attempt made to address the question of water treatment or of chemical use during dyeing and processing of the fibers.

So to begin, let’s look at what plastic recycling means, since there are many misconceptions about recycling plastic – especially plastic bottles from which (some) recycled polyester yarns are made.

In 1970, at the time of the first Earth Day, Gary Anderson won a contest sponsored by Container Corporation of America to present a design which symbolizes the recycling process.  His winning design  was a three-chasing-arrows Mobius loop, with the arrows twisting and turning among themselves.   Because of the symbol’s simplicity and clarity it became widely used worldwide and is a symbol now recognized  by almost everyone.  Today almost all plastic containers have the “chasing arrows” symbol.  We’re bombarded with that symbol – any manufacturer worth his salt slaps it on their products.

But the symbol itself is meaningless.  This symbol is not a government mandated code, and does not imply any particular type or amount of recycled content.  Many people think that the “chasing arrows” symbol means the plastic can be recycled – and that too is untrue.

The only useful information in the “chasing arrows” symbol is the number inside the arrows, which indicates the general class of resin used to make the container. There are thousands of types of plastic used for consumer packaging today. In 1988, the Society of the Plastics Industry devised a numbering system  to aid in sorting plastics for recycling, because in order to be recycled,  each plastic container must be separated by type before it can be used again to make a new product. Of the seven types, only two kinds, polyethelene terephthalate (PET), known as #1, and High Density Polyethelyne (HDPE) – or #2 -  are typically collected and reprocessed.   Some of these resins are not yet recyclable at all (such as #6 or 7), or they’re recyclable only rarely.

In addition, a resin code might indeed indicate #1 (PET) for example, but depending on the use (yogurt cup vs. soda bottle) it will contain different dyes, plasticizers, UV inhibitors, softeners, or other chemicals.
This mix of additives changes the properties of the plastic, so not all #1 resins can be melted together – further complicating the process.  Here’s a list of the seven resin codes and some of the concerns associated with each:

Consumers see the symbol and  - thinking it means the plastic can be recycled – drop bottles into recycling bins, feeling they’ve “done their part” and that the used bottle is now part of the infinite loop, becoming a new and valued product.  But does the bottle actually get “recycled”, returning to a high value product, staying out of the garbage dump?

Well, uh, . . .  not really.  Collecting plastic containers in a recycling bin fosters the belief that, like aluminum and glass, the recovered material is converted into new containers.  In fact, none of the recovered plastic containers are being made into containers again, but rather into new secondary products, like textiles, parking lot bumpers, or plastic lumber – all unrecyclable products.  “Recycled’ in this case merely means “collected.”

A bottle can become a fabric, but a fabric can’t become a bottle – or even another fabric, but we’ll get to that later.  There are far too few exceptions to this rule.

Plastic has what’s called a “heat history”: each time it gets recycled the polymer chains break down, weakening the plastic and making it less suitable for high end use.  PET degrades after about 5 melt cycles.  This phenomenon, known in the industry as “cascading” or “downcycling,” has a troubling consequence.    It means that all plastic – including the tiny proportion that finds its way into another bottle – “will eventually end up in the landfill,” said Jerry Powell, editor of Plastics Recycling Update.

The technology exists to recycle most kinds of plastic, but a lack of infrastructure prevents all but the most widespread kinds of plastic from being recycled.  Collection is expensive because plastic bottles are light yet bulky, making it hard to efficiently gather significant amounts of matching plastic.  For recycling to work, communities must be able to cost effectively collect and sort plastic, and businesses must be willing to accept the material for processing. So no matter whether a particular plastic is in a form which allows it to be melted and reused, something is only recyclable if there is a company out there who is willing to use it to make a new product. If there is no one who will accept the material and make a new product out of it, then it is not recyclable.

Only a few kinds of plastic have the supply and market conditions that make recycling feasible. With plastics in particular, how the plastic particles are put together (molded or extruded) changes their chemical make up and make them non recyclable in certain applications. Some bottles make it to a recycler, who must scramble to find a buyer.  The recycler  often ends up selling the bottles at a loss to an entrepreneur who makes carpeting or traffic strips – anything but new bottles.

Recycling reduces the ecological impact of plastic, but it remains more complicated, more expensive and less effective than other parts of the recycling industry. No matter how many chasing arrows are printed on plastic products, it doesn’t change the fact that plastic is largely a throwaway material.

Next week:   what is the plastic industry doing to create a stronger recycling market for its product?