What to do about Wrapping? (2)

Dragon made of recyclables 3 - Jardin des Plantes

I posted about cellophane a while ago as the last remaining refuse that I cannot recycle and my very good friend Tom at Wiggers World kindly told me this!

"Cellulose belongs to a class of compounds known in organic chemistry as carbohydrates. The base unit of cellulose is the glucose molecule. Thousands of these glucose molecules are brought together in the plant growth cycle to form long chains, termed cellulose. These chains are in turn broken down in the production process to form cellulose film used in either an uncoated or coated form in packaging.

SWAN LAKE - RECYCLED TIRES, FLORIADE, CANBERRA

When buried, uncoated cellulose film is generally found to degrade within 10 to 30 days; PVDC-coated film is found to degrade in 90 to 120 days and nitrocellulose-coated cellulose is found to degrade in 60 to 90 days.

Tests have shown that the average total time for complete bio-degradation of cellulose film is from 28 to 60 days for uncoated products, and from 80 to 120 days for coated cellulose products. In lake water, the rate of bio-degradation is 10 days for uncoated film and 30 days for coated cellulose film. Even materials which are thought of as highly degradable, like paper and green leaves, take longer to degrade than cellulose film products. Conversely, plastics, polyvinyl chloride, polyethene, polyethlene terepthatlate, and oriented-polypropylene show almost no sign of degradation after long periods of burial."


He also left me this link which lead me onto the following bit of information.

How is it made?

Unlike the man-made polymers in plastics, which are largely derived from petroleum, cellophane is a natural polymer made from cellulose, a component of plants and trees. Cellophane is not made from rainforest trees, but rather from trees farmed and harvested specifically for cellophane production.

Example of recycle from an early age

Cellophane is made by digesting wood and cotton pulps in a series of chemical baths that remove impurities and break the long fiber chains in this raw material. Regenerated as a clear, shiny film, with plasticizing chemicals added for flexibility, cellophane is still comprised largely of crystalline cellulose molecules. This means that it can be broken down by micro-organisms in the soil just as leaves and plants are.


So next to find out who is using degradable cellophane and start shopping there. I will let you know what I find out.

Thanks again Tom!

Image Credits: Wfages, Rabrabrab's, Jeffrey Carrie

By the way in case you were not sure all images in this post are things made of recycled items. Hover over them to see text explaining what they were and are.

Comments

  1. Thank you for the generous comment on my blog.

    Your site is aso a treasure trove.

    Do keep in touch.

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  2. A funny story you have here. Black Swans are great. The dragon´s puff was also hilarious.

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  3. Again, very well written. Thanks for stopping by my place. Hope you are having a great weekend!

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  4. Interesting about that cellophane. Great shot with the dragon. Impressive!

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  5. Wow! I really like the first one. I thought it was a dragon in the sky while it was loading. :D

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  6. Dear All, thanks so much for the comments and my apologies for the late reply. As you may have noticed this blog has taken a bit of a back bench for a while and due to a change in email addresses I did not realise I had comments!

    I am glad you liked the pictures and article. I will be back soon!

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  7. This is a great bunch of information. That Tom sure can find the answers. I had what I thought was an arcane question and he got to the bottom of it for me in short order.

    These recycled items are great. I guess if some of this material degrades quickly, the art is pretty ephemeral?

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  8. You and Tom are pretty smart guys! I am sad to say that we only started in earnest to recycle a couple of years ago. I think of all the damage we could have prevented and get angry all over again.

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  9. Well well well......

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  10. These shots are amazing. What is possible is what is amazing. God bless.

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  11. These are remarkable works of recycling! And they make very cool photographs too.

    Thanks for the science lesson, really! Who knew? I wonder why we stopped using the stuff if it's that friendly... Seems like it would cost less to produce even, considering it's not a petrochemical process.

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  12. Interesting post on your blog, I loved the reading and the pictures are awesome. Thank you for stopping in at my blog.

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