Letter to the Editor: Oxo-degradable Plastic Bags Not Better For Environment
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: OXO-DEGRADABLE PLASTIC BAGS NOT BETTER FOR ENVIRONMENT While I applaud Sibu Municipal Council’s efforts to reduce plastic pollution by banning non-biodegradable plastic bags (‘ Sibu’s Tough Stand Against Plastic’ , The Star, 22 Jan 2018), its proposal to replace conventional plastic bags with purportedly ‘biodegradable’ plastic bags poses fresh environmental problems. The plastic pollution reduction regulations and policies currently in place in Malaysia seem to mostly encourage the replacement of conventional plastic bags with paper bags, purportedly ‘biodegradable’ plastic bags and cheap non-woven shopping bags. In addition, styrofoam food packaging is merely replaced with other types of non-foam plastic food packaging, and so far there does not appear to be any organised or official effort to recover, collect and clean these types of plastic packaging for recycling. None of these items introduced to replace conventional plastic and styrofoam produ...