What makes one product biodegradable? Is there biodegradable paper straws?
A product is biodegradable if capable of being decomposed if placed in environment of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungus. Biodegradable material could be food leftovers (fruits, vegetables meat), wood, products made of natural materials (like paper, cotton and wool clothing), human and animal
Biodegradable paper straws sounds fine, but it is very important all manufacturing processes to be kept strictly in order to make the very product really biodegradable. Using improper glue, would make the paper straw not different from the plastic straws we all know.
We see the word biodegradable on many products’ labels. Is it properly used or just written without further explanation how a product should be disposed of, although biodegradable? Practically in nature everything is biodegradable. It is just a matter of time a product to decompose. For a paper straw this time is in the region of one to three months, but a plastic one will disappear in about 200 years.
It is not a secret the disposables are bad for the environment, especially for the ocean animals. Plastic straws are rated 11th most found plastic waste in the oceans. Its decomposing takes up to 200 years. Recycling the plastic straws is very hard to achieve as they are very light (around 0.5 gr.) and are made not only from polypropylene but a mixture of plastics, very hard to reuse. Each year 1 000 000 seabirds and 100 000 sea and ocean animals die, digesting plastic waste wrongly taking it for food.