Our landfills are being filled at with about 30 million tons of plastics per year. There\'s an \"Island\" of plastic bags in the ocean northeast of Hawaii that\'s twice as big as the state of Texas which is polluting the oceans and all of its\' inhabitants and there\'s 1 trillion plastic bags being used yearly with only around 5% of those being recycled, innovations in products like biodegradable plastic bags to take the place of traditional plastic bags should be more than welcome. Many such innovations to take the place of petroleum based plastics are being made from plants. The plants being used include sugar cane, corn, wheat, tapioca, potatoes and soy to name a few. Others being considered include switch-grass and oilseed. Another alternative is made from genetically modified microbes and will break down if thrown in a home compost bin or in the ocean. Being able to compost or bury biodegradable plastic bags at your home is a major advantage to having to be transported in order to be broken down. \r\nIf you\'re looking for an alternative to carry your groceries home from the market, bags manufactured from recycled plastic bottles are an eco friendly choice as well as bags made from recycled cotton, organic cotton, calico, jute, Hessian and hemp. All these bags can used to tote your groceries home and do not add to the already large problem of what to do with all those plastic bags already in existence. One word of caution though, if you do use these types of bags for groceries make sure that they are washed often to prevent the spread of mold, yeast or bacteria to your food.\r\nA good alternative to using plastic bags for pet waste is to use compostable biodegradable plastic bags which are a type of biodegradable plastic bag which can be composted in a pet waste composter or they can be put into the biodegradable waste pile which is picked up by local garbage services when they pick up the other biodegradable waste. Another option is to just bury it since it will break down into the soil. \r\nThese same types of compostable bags can also be used for your garbage and your yard debris as well as many other uses. \r\nDespite efforts to promote biodegradable plastic bags or bioplastics, analysts estimate that only a very small amount of bioplastics will be produced by the year 2010-only 1 million tons versus 500 million tons of the petroleum based variety. \r\nWhen using plastic bags it\'s a good idea to look for the three arrow symbol on the bag which lets you know that that particular plastic bag is at least recyclable. Every little bit helps so if you don\'t use biodegradable plastic bags you can still use recyclable bags.
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