"Biodegradable" plastic bags survive three years in sea

Do "biodegradable" plastic bags really biodegrade? These scientists examined the degradation of five of these bags. This is what they found out.

Transcript

00:30One of the bags could completely vanish or completely degrade in all of the environments

00:40and particularly in the soil and the marine environment, some of the bags could still

00:45hold a full bag of shopping, so a full bag of shopping that we typically expect to get

00:50on a day-to-day basis.

00:51What the research we've just completed shows is that for the materials we examined, the

00:55plastic bags we examined, they simply weren't reliably degrading at any meaningful timescale

01:00in the natural environment.

01:25Are we talking about it biodegrading in an industrial composting facility?

01:55At 50 to 60 degrees Celsius, at specific conditions of pH and humidity and oxygen availability?

02:02Or are we talking about something biodegrading in the natural environment?

02:06In the sea, in a river, in a soil?

02:08Because they're very, very different conditions.