GOING GREEN – February 2025
If, like me, you are puzzled by the disconnect of greater numbers of the British public and our natural world you might like to read Guy Shrubsole’s latest book “The Lie of the Land. Who really cares for the countryside”.
Shrubsole traces this estrangement with nature back to the time of the Enclosures when many rural people were evicted from their homes and the land they had always known. They were set adrift having to find work and lodgings in towns and cities and our connection with all living creatures began to vanish.
Some years ago my family used to give a holiday in the country to under privileged children who had never left the city of London. On our journey back home from collecting one little girl from Reading Station, she was transfixed by the view from the car window, and murmured “cows” to herself on seeing
some in a field at Shiplake. She was 9 years old and had never seen a cow in real life. We stopped the car so that she could get out and have a closer look at them grazing.
But it isn’t just city dwellers who ‘don’t get nature’. I see plenty of people around here jogging or dog walking with earphones plugged in oblivious to enthusiastic birdsong and other real life happening around them.
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Many people buy and use ‘compostable’ or ‘biodegradable’ bags believing they are doing the right thing for the environment. Sadly this is not always the case. In this country we don’t have a standard for biodegradability. Anything made from PBAT or PLA and is labelled as compostable or biodegradable is only so at industrial incinerator temperatures.
Even then if the residue from the process was used for compost, the effect of such high temperature on the polymers would significantly impact the soils chemical properties including pH levels, nutrient availability, total carbon composition and the diversity of microbial communities which as a result makes the soil not suitable for food production.
I discovered this in a research article “Biodegradability in Soils” the British Society of Soil Science Journal (April 2024). Not my normal reading matter but I was led to it through a misjudged purchase of a household product. Labelled as Eco Friendly cling wrap and certified compostable I thought I was
doing the right thing. However when it proved difficult to use properly I looked more closely at the packaging. What I had believed to be made from plant materials was definitely not! Its composition was 3% Polylactide – a polymer made from waste corn and other plants. The remaining 97% is PBAT.
PBAT stands for Poly Butylene Adipate Co-terephthalate and is called a biodegradable plastic, a synthetic polyester made from fossil fuels typically used as a biodegradable plastic in mulch film products. Scientists have found it needs intense heat of industrial composters to break down properly. Unfortunately the chemical properties of the soil are significantly affected as a result.
Companies who falsely claim that their products are recyclable, compostable and biodegradable and/or they are ‘good for the environment’ when clearly they are not, are “greenwashing”. I guess the moral here is carefully read the packaging before you buy!
By coincidence I heard a short radio interview with Alison Ogden–Newton the CEO of Keep Britain Tidy about the subject of litter. She said that 30 billion plastic bottles are sold in the UK each year, of which one third end up as litter. The good news is that the government are introducing a Deposit Return Service Scheme for plastic bottles and drinks cans. The 54 countries who have a DRS scheme already have reduced littering by 90%.
Asked why there is so much more litter these days, she replied it was through the growth of fast food outlets and more dog owners. She explained the problem of decomposition if using dog poo bags made of PBAT. Throwing them in bushes and hanging them on trees will not help our environment at all. In
fact bags of dog mess left in the countryside are very dangerous. Dog faeces carries disease, can kill cows and can make pregnant sheep abort.
Would it be unreasonable to ask for a re-introduction of dog licences for the 13.5 million pet dogs in the U.K.? Perhaps some of the fee could go towards providing more dog bins and the disposal support needed so that there would be no excuse for not disposing of dog bags properly.
