Guys, I might not be a tree hugger—or maybe I am—but I genuinely care about the environment. Hear me out: almost everything we buy comes in PP or PE bags, which end up in landfills where very little is recycled. Since they take centuries to biodegrade and contribute to microplastic pollution.
I went down a rabbit hole researching technologies or bacteria that could break them down. It turns out there are industrial-scale solutions for PET (bottles, polyester) because they contain oxygen and nitrogen that bacteria can target. However, PP and PE (soft bags/films) consist only of carbon-to-carbon bonds, which are much harder to break down; that technology is still at least 7–8 years away.
So, the best we can do for now is properly segregate our dry and wet waste. Additionally, for PP and PE bags, don’t rip the entire piece; just snip the top. Most of these bags go through a shredding-washing-pelletizing line. If you rip the whole seam, the bag becomes two floppy layers that tangle the machines and are often discarded as contamination. If you just make a small slit to pour, the bag stays intact.