{"id":146257,"date":"2025-11-21T10:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146257\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T10:38:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:38:04","slug":"biodegradable-plastic-debate-heats-up-as-more-countries-impose-bans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146257\/","title":{"rendered":"Biodegradable Plastic Debate Heats Up as More Countries Impose Bans"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent years, at least a half-dozen countries have embraced plastics made with an additive intended to break them down into carbon dioxide, water and harmless organic matter. Proponents of these compounds, generally labeled oxo-biodegradables, promote them as a solution to the 80 million tons of plastic that foul forests, fields<\/a> and waterways every year.<\/p>\n

Sounds great, but independent scientists say there\u2019s scant support<\/a> for claims that oxo-biodegradable plastics disappear in nature, at least within a meaningful time frame\u2014and governments worldwide are increasingly listening to them<\/a>. The European Union<\/a> banned such compounds in 2021, Switzerland<\/a> and New Zealand<\/a> followed in 2022, and last year Hong Kong<\/a> and the Canadian province of British Columbia<\/a> introduced restrictions. The UK<\/a> and New York<\/a> state are currently considering the idea. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In recent years, at least a half-dozen countries have embraced plastics made with an additive intended to break…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[31956,2534,273,2024,564,4431,1767,111,139,69,147,1769,145,2025,8706],"class_list":["post-146257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-businessweek","tag-cancer","tag-environment","tag-europe","tag-food","tag-hong-kong","tag-new-york","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-switzerland","tag-technology","tag-united-kingdom","tag-university-college-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}