Bad news for Greenware cups like the one below.
Study: Biodegradable Products May Be Bad For The Environment
Research from North Carolina State University shows that so-called biodegradable products are likely doing more harm than good in landfills, because they are releasing a powerful greenhouse gas as they break down.
“Biodegradable materials, such as disposable cups and utensils, are broken down in landfills by microorganisms that then produce methane,” says Dr. Morton Barlaz, co-author of a paper describing the research and professor and head of NC State’s Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering. “Methane can be a valuable energy source when captured, but is a potent greenhouse gas when released into the atmosphere.”
And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that only about 35 percent of municipal solid waste goes to landfills that capture methane for energy use. EPA estimates that another 34 percent of landfills capture methane and burn it off on-site, while 31 percent allow the methane to escape.
“In other words,” Barlaz says, “biodegradable products are not necessarily more environmentally friendly when disposed in landfills.”
This problem may be exacerbated by the rate at which these man-made biodegradable materials break down. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines call for products marked as “biodegradable” to decompose within “a reasonably short period of time” after disposal. But such rapid degradation may actually be environmentally harmful, because federal regulations do not require landfills that collect methane to install gas collection systems for at least two years after the waste is buried. If materials break down and release methane quickly, much of that methane will likely be emitted before the collection technology is installed. This means less potential fuel for energy use, and more greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, the researchers find that a slower rate of biodegradation is actually more environmentally friendly, because the bulk of the methane production will occur after the methane collection system is in place. Some specific biodegradable products such as bags that hold yard waste and are always sent to composting or anaerobic digestion facilities were not included in the study.
“If we want to maximize the environmental benefit of biodegradable products in landfills,” Barlaz says, “we need to both expand methane collection at landfills and design these products to degrade more slowly – in contrast to FTC guidance.”
The paper, “Is Biodegradability a Desirable Attribute for Discarded Solid Waste? Perspectives from a National Landfill Greenhouse Gas Inventory Model,” was co-authored by Barlaz and NC State Ph.D. student James Levis, and was published online May 27 by the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The research was supported by Procter & Gamble and the Environmental Research and Education Foundation.
-shipman-
The study abstract follows.
“Is Biodegradability a Desirable Attribute for Discarded Solid Waste? Perspectives from a National Landfill Greenhouse Gas Inventory Model”
Authors: James W. Levis, Morton A. Barlaz, North Carolina State University
Published: Online May 27, Environmental Science & Technology
Abstract: There is increasing interest in the use of biodegradable materials because they are believed to be “greener”. In a landfill, these materials degrade anaerobically to form methane and carbon dioxide. The fraction of the methane that is collected can be utilized as an energy source and the fraction of the biogenic carbon that does not decompose is stored in the landfill. A landfill life-cycle model was developed to represent the behavior of MSW components and new materials disposed in a landfill representative of the U.S. average with respect to gas collection and utilization over a range of environmental conditions (i.e., arid, moderate wet, and bioreactor). The behavior of materials that biodegrade at relatively fast (food waste), medium (biodegradable polymer) and slow (newsprint and office paper) rates was studied. Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyoctanoate) (PHBO) was selected as illustrative for an emerging biodegradable polymer. Global warming potentials (GWP) of 26, 720, -1000, 990, and 1300 kg CO2e wet Mg1_ were estimated for MSW, food waste, newsprint, office paper, and PHBO, respectively in a national average landfill. In a state-of-the-art landfill with gas collection and electricity generation, GWP’s of -250, 330, -1400, -96, and -420 kg CO2e wet Mg1 _ were estimated for MSW, food waste, newsprint, office paper and PHBO, respectively. Additional simulations showed that for a hypothetical material, a slower biodegradation rate and a lower extent of biodegradation improve the environmental performance of a material in a landfill representative of national average conditions.
What we need for this article is a scale to show how much methane is released per cup. x biodegradable cups = 1 cow fart.
That should put it in perspective.
All the technology to take unsorted MSW (municipal solid waste) and raw sewage, and automatically separate the whole mess while producing electricity, clean water and recyclable materials ready to reprocess has existed for over 20 years. There’s no need for labor intensive (thus expensive) manual sorting. Part of it involves shredding the waste into fairly uniform, small chunks to make automated sorting processes easier.
It would also be quite easy to collect all kinds of chemicals, oils and other useful liquids by tapping the bottom of the shredders then running the ‘shredda’ through a centrifuge. Pump it into tankers and sell it to refineries to run through with the crude oil. They already do that to recycle used engine oil. When there’s no buyers for the recovered chemical cocktail, burn it. Burn it hot, really stinking hot so there’s next to nothing left.
One process I’ve heard about mixed small amounts of clay with shredded garbage then pelletized it. Waste combustion heat was used to dry the pellets on their way to the burner. The combustion baked the pellets into lumps of porous ceramic, ideal aggregate for use in concrete because the pellets had a massive surface area for the the cement to stick to and all the holes to create a mechanical bond. It would also work better than gravel in asphalt roads, providing higher resistance to cracking.
What hasn’t happened yet is integrating all of the processes into a single system.
I’d love to discuss all this and more with someone who is in the WTE industry.
Talking of green products it seems that the E-coli might have been caused by organic farming methods. Manure!
And from the chap you gave us the missing 50 million climate refugees
More:
http://notrickszone.com/2011/05/24/deadly-e-coli-bacteria-spreading-and-bringing-death-to-germany-suspected-to-originate-from-organic-farming/
The Nee Jerk principle in action
Garbage dunp study Applicants wanted:
Apply for lifetime job – great pay and benefits – a good nose and a degree in BS / NJR – GIf-G essential.
Green Idea + No study X Speed of Nee Jerk action plan (NJR) + Government implementation financing/grant (GIf-G ) = Product roll out.
Results = An Eco product problem that requires more study and remedial remedy action = More Government implementation financing/grant = Remedial rectified product roll out + Observation and model study group + More Government financing/grant.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
Dave,
When I worked with Mort in 1991, he was an assistant professor. He is now the head of the Department of Civil Engineering at NCSU. Yes, he built his work on the design and operations of land fills and is well aware of the EPA restrictions on such designs and operations. I suspect that most of the funding he gets for graduate students is from the solid waste industry and landfill operators, not the federal goverment. Google “Morton Barlaz” and decide whether your comment is correct or knee-jerk “garbage”.
f-k.com ? Oh, i remember the day of
PowerGen Italia dot com
(they wrote it without a separator…)
JW says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:22 pm
” don’t get why you all are celebrating this finding as if it flies in the face of ‘greenies.’
1) The researchers are saying we should collect the methane and use it instead of letting it into the atmosphere…. greenies would agree.
2) The products are not inherently bad, but you still rejoice about a biodegradable cup having SOME negative impacts on the environment.”
Well what we are making fun of is the GHG counting ways of the AGW “scientists”. You know, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. All these “scientists” are part of that post normal theology that busies itself with determining, well, irrelevant things. Nature won’t give a fart about a little less or more methane as it’s a pretty well-balanced system, otherwise it would have gone off a cliff a long time ago. The sciency word for this is negative feedback. So all these pseudoscientists just waste their life and the taxpayers dime while thinking of themselves as saviours of the planet. Personally, i find it highly comedic.
What are the enviromentalists going to do now? They can’t use any dispostible items because all things breakdown and releases methane into the air. What is real scary is that if the enviromentalists acually (some how) manage to eliminate CO2. All the trees that they like to hug will die. I do have an idea though for enviromentalists. If you really want to do your part in lowering CO2. Stop breathing. Oh, hold on. Nevermind. You would die and then your body will decompose and release methane into the air.
I cannot relate to those who say they would prefer to eat produce treated with chemicals than those grown with natural fertilizer. I would much rather take the risk of e. coli, which should not be a concern when fruits and vegetables are properly washed, over chemicals which have been absorbed into the flesh of the produce.
When outbreaks of smallpox first appeared in the 1700s the vaccination was eventually discovered because of the observation that people who had worked with dairy cows were immune to the virus. Their exposure to cow pox spared them from smallpox outbreaks. Similarly, people working closely with animals and growing their own food using animal dung fertilizer will likely be exposed to pathogens that help boost the immune system.
We have become accustomed to living in a sterilized world. Today, the incidence of many previously common types of infections is lower in chilren, while diseases like asthma are more prevalent. The theory is our hygiene practices are limiting children’s exposure and thus resistance to certain diseases. This also puts children at risk for certain diseases in adulthood.
There is a link between pesticide use and neurological disease in humans. We have observed the consequences of chemical fertilizer run-off in oceans and fresh water lakes (dead zones). Many chemicals present in food and water are known to increase risk of many types of cancers. Arguably, the effects of these forms of chemical pollution are much more grave than global warming. Why would anyone choose these consequences over a little manure?
Have you never heard the famous French saying, “Mange la merde et mourir!”?