BIN HILAL ENTERPRISES

KHALEEJ TIMES – CITY TIMES

CURBING THE PLASTIC MENACE
BY PRADEEP KUMAR

 5 May 2003

Your trip to the local supermarket or the grocery shop is bound to bring back home loads of plastic bags. On your part, you religiously dump the plastic bag in your store room with the thought that it might come handy in future or just throw them in the waste bin.

Much has been written about the increasing use of plastics, most of them describing how dangerous and hazardous they are. We somehow do not seem to understand the seriousness of the 'plastic menace'. For most of us, plastic bags are just plastic bags - light weight and convenient.

One of the major concerns with plastics is, it is non-degradable and the hazards of using a non-degradable product are plenty.

Littered around the place, plastic bags can enter the food chain and prove lethal for animals ingesting them. Apart from clogging drains and water outlets, plastics are often credited with the blocking the porosity of soil, thus causing problems for groundwater recharge.

Plastic also disturbs the soil microbe activity.

Plastic bags can also contaminate foodstuffs due to leaching of toxic dyes and transfer of pathogens. Far in the seas, the offshore facilities and ships have problems when plastic bags get sucked into their water inlets. They are also a danger to the entire marine life.

Unfortunately recycling is not the only answer to waste disposal. It is reported that plastic represents one million tonnes of the United Kingdom's total waste, which can take up to 100 years to degrade. This also means that although traditionally buried, plastic can resurface as a real environmental hazard, littering our land and seas, and endangering our wildlife.

And as we continue our lives without being able to do away with plastics, one firm has introduced a solution that is inherently degradable. According to the firm, a polyethylene product range has been developed which is inherently degradable, and will degrade completely in a landfill site. Alternatively the material is fully recyclable.

British firm Symphony Plastics' innovative and environment friendly plastic is bound to change the way one looks at and use plastics. The unique process developed by Symphony reduces the molecular weight of the product from one quarter million to less than 4,000, leading to the rapid breakdown of the material when exposed to varied conditions.

Explains Winston Pryce, Managing Director, Bin Hilal Enterprises, "The benefits of using degradable plastic bags are many. Firstly, they disappear without trace; help reduce the emission of methane gas; save tonnes of valuable landfill space, and lastly leave behind no harmful by-products."

Bin Hilal has a formed a joint venture with Symphony Plastics to manufacture and sell the new product in the Middle East.

A number of factors such as sunlight, heat and stress (such as pulling and tearing) can initiate the degradation of the new plastic.

In typical Gulf summer conditions, says Pryce, a bag outside, directly exposed to the heat and light will start disintegrating within three to four weeks, while the shelf life of the bags stored in a warehouse, in a box at 30 degree Celsius will be around 12 months.

"There is definitely a lack of education about plastic in the society. Plastics have become a part of our lives on account of their being inexpensive, light-weight, strong, easy storage, etc. For most people plastics are hardly a problem," says Humaid Saeed Al-Dhaheri, Vice Chairman, Bin Hilal Enterprises.

So much of plastics is used here, claims Al-Dhaheri, that the current demand for plastic film alone in the Gulf is around 2,75,000 metric tonnes per annum.

Now that we have decided to continue our lives with plastics, why not show a little more concern towards the future generations by using at least the degradable ones.

The 'new plastic' bags, according to its promoters, apart from being as convenient as the ordinary plastic bags, will degrade harmlessly and completely after use, regardless of the environmental conditions, leaving no harmful residue behind except water and carbon dioxide.

Degradable plastic, because of the superior technology used, is priced slightly higher than the ordinary ones. But that has not deterred its increasing popularity worldwide. Many municipalities in the United Kingdom, for instance, have advocated the use of Symphony's product.

Closer home, many supermarkets, hotels, duty free shops and government departments are now using the product. However, there is still the need to increase the awareness level of the product so that more and more people and organisations start using the product. "Degradable plastics is relatively new technology and the people are not aware about it," says Pryce, adding, "We have been promoting the product in various environmental groups apart from holding promotional campaigns in major supermarkets."

As for Bin Hilal, they certainly foresee the region adopting the degradable plastic soon. The company, anticipating demand, has already commissioned its production unit in Abu Dhabi. Its current production capacity is 200 tonnes per month.