FOUR SURPRISING FACTS & MYTHS ABOUT PLASTIC
SMART SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIES

Four surprising facts & myths about plastic

We produce 348 million tons of plastic worldwide each year. We use over 40% of that only once. There is good news as well, however, because there are more and more sustainable alternatives to oil-based plastics. Here are four surprising facts and myths about plastic.

1. You eat your debit card each week

It seems too weird to be true, but research from the Australian university in Newcastle shows that we eat 5 grams of plastic each week. This is equal to the weight of your debit card. You ingest most microplastics via drinking water. And one of the culprits is the cigarette. Cigarette filters contain plastic that end up in the sewers, after you have tossed your cigarette butt away. For sewage treatment plants it is near impossible to remove the tiny plastic particles from the water. Another culprit is textile. In a washing machine, tremendous amounts of small plastic fibres are released that end up in the surface water after being drained.

2. A plastic bag is never sustainable

Would you like a bag with that? As of 1 January 2016, we have to pay for a plastic bag in Dutch stores. This is not yet the case everywhere, unfortunately. Worldwide, we produce more than 1 million plastic bags each minute. The average ‘life expectancy’ of a bag is 15 minutes. Luckily, there are an increasing number of businesses and chains that make the switch to a sustainable alternative. For example, supermarket chain Poiesz has bio-based bags made out of cane sugar. There are plenty of compostable bags made of cornmeal or potato flour.

3. Buy a bell pepper, get some corn for free

Maybe this is in your refrigerator without you knowing: a bell pepper wrapped in plastic made out of cornmeal. More and more vegetables have bio-degradable packaging nowadays. Bioplastics are made of starch. In addition to being used as packing materials for vegetables, these bio-degradable plastics are perfectly suited for use in agriculture. Flowerpots, for instance, that you can put straight into the ground, after which they will decompose. And it comes in handy for home use as well, in bio-degradable bags for green waste, for instance.

4. A cola with alcohol?

A cola is the perfect drink when you are the designated driver. But did you know that alcohol is used during the production of the bottle? When you take sugar and add yeast, you get alcohol. With this alcohol, named bioethanol, you can use some chemical processes to create the raw materials for PET bottles. Coca-Cola bottles in Amerika have a special Plant Bottle logo. In the Netherlands, that logo is absent, but the bottles are indeed partially made out of bio-based plastics.

Would you like to learn more surprising facts about plastics? Professors (applied sciences) Rudy Folkersma and Jan Jager research this interesting subject daily. The Sustainable Plastics professorship (applied sciences) in Emmen focuses on bio-based and bio-degradable materials. The Circular Plastic professorship in Leeuwarden focuses on plastic recycling.