Biostarch bags now available!

This company is guilty of obvious and misleading greenwashing.

Their bag states that the product is ‘organic for life’ when in fact the materials used to make it (industrial farmed corn) are not organic at all, requiring a massive input of fossil fuels to grow.

Their website also states that their product is made from the ‘renewable’ resource ‘starch’ – but again if it is grown using fossil fuels we can conclusively state that this is not ‘renewable’.

It would also be interesting to see the comparison of how much oil is required to grow the corn to make these bags vs. just directly making the oil into conventional plastic bags.

There is also the not insignificant matter of this disposable product requiring the use of ever-scarcer farmland and energy to grow a disposable and inedible waste product.

I’m sure there might be some application for this product in areas where disposable plastics are a necessity (medical labs etc.) but claiming that this product is ‘greener’ in general application is nonsense.

Not organic, not sustainable or renewable, massive input of fossil fuels and farmland to make an unnecessary disposable waste product. We simply cannot call this product green.

I beg to differ from Ryan’s posting.

I agree fossil fuel is not renewable. However we certainly are not at the position to claim any of the industrial process is “fossil fuel” oriented without going into the operational details.

First of all no one is at the position to categorically declare the growth of the corn requires “massive input of fossil fuel” without having the first hand farming information of the corn production concerned.

Secondly, the “renewable resource” is a source that is “replaced by natural processes at a rate comparable or faster than its rate of consumption by humans by definition” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_resource). To give this company a fair go, they are using corn (starch) as base material which is indeed renewable. Good on them! Their product poses no harm to marine animals and will bio-degrade in natural environment settings. It is clearly miles better than Plastic Bags we use today.

Our human race is not going to make any progress if we are limited by our extreme views. If we are going to endorse solar powered cars, what can we achieve if we refuse to make the solar battery panel because the manufacturing process uses electricity which “burns fossil fuels”?

Personally I can see a better, cleaner and more sustainable world if Biostarch material is adopted globally.

Biostarch solution is organic.
Biostarch solution is sustainable.
Biostarch solution is greener.

I personally feel Biostarch deserves a lot of applauses for their contribution to humanity. Go green, go Biostarch!

You are wholly incorrect.

We are indeed able to conclusively state that this company’s industrial process is fossil fuel oriented and not organic or sustainable using simple deductive reasoning.

I attended a presentation by this company in Singapore last month. A representative of the company confirmed that they do not use organic farming methods to grow their corn, and in fact use conventional industrially farmed grain corn.

Industrial corn farming uses 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of food energy. In addition to these inputs we have to include the fossil fuels used to transport the corn to the factory, power the bags’ manufacturing and then distribution to its wholesalers.

Therefore this product’s life cycle is unequivocally fossil fuel oriented.

Industrial farming is not organic due to it’s inputs of fossil fuel based fertilizer and pesticides, the company’s rep confirmed that their products are farmed industrially, and the company does not have any ‘organic’ certification. Therefore this product is not ‘organic’ – by any accepted criteria.

Further, corn farmed using industrial agriculture cannot ever be’replaced by natural processes at a rate comparable or faster than its rate of consumption by humans’ because it requires an input of fossil fuel which is a finite resource. Therefore using industrial farming methods it is not a renewable resource.

Additionally since we know fossil fuels to be finite, we can conclusively state that any product which requires their perpetual input (including biostarch) is not ‘sustainable’, because we will eventually run out of oil.

You would do well to check your claims that this product ‘poses no harm to marine animals’. Nitrogen run off from industrial farming (Biostarch’s primary input) causes depletion of oxygen in our oceans, lakes and streams, which kills aquatic life. To site just one example please refer to the ‘Dead Zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0525_050525_deadzone.html

paying particular attention to the first paragraph:

“Each year a swath of the Gulf of Mexico becomes so devoid of shrimp, fish, and other marine life that it is known as the dead zone.

Scientists have identified agricultural fertilizers as a primary culprit behind the phenomenon. Researchers are now focusing on shrinking the zone.”

So we can conclusively say that Biostarch directly contributes to the death of marine life.

Our han race will can and will make progress if we pay attention to science and reason to fix our problems rather then allowing companies like Biostarch to continue to destroy the planet while making utterly false claims to being ‘organic, sustainable, or grener’ in order to make a quick buck.

Nowhere do I advocate not manufacturing solar panels because they burn fossil fuel. Indeed using our remaining fossil fuels to build solar panels which can supply us with actually sustainable and greener energy should be one of our top priorities.

What we should not be doing with fossil fuels is using them to power environmentally destructive agriculture and manufacturing processes to make unneeded disposable plastic bags. This ecological and economic madness.

These bags can in no way be characterized as organic, sustainable or even ‘greener’ then plastic bags. This company is guilty of perpetuating needless environmental destruction while making false claims about it’s products ecological credentials.

Whilst I can understand Nicoles point that we need to use some fossil fuels to make progress, this is certainly the case in the example you state for solar powered cars, that would be a well worthy use of fossil fuels.
But using them to make disposable bags is not a great use and not progress in any way. As Ryan mentioned there might be some limited use, I am sure medical labs need to use disposable bags but if we are making disposable bags to bring our groceries back from the supermarket then that is in no way green – whether they are biodegradable or otherwise – the energy spent to make them for just one use is simply not worth it.

We should be encouraging people to ‘reuse’ and move away from this throw-away culture that has got the planet in this mess in the first place!!