This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science. I'm Steve Mursky.

So you buy something made of plastic and it's labeled biodegradable.

You can rest easy knowing that after you throw it out it will harmlessly break down.

Well, not so fast.

When we look at biodegradability as it pertains to landfills, biodegradability is not a desirable

attribute for a material and the reason for this is that when we design for

biodegradability,

we're typically designing for rapid biodegradability.

And yet, landfills do not begin to collect the gas

that's produced typically for two years.

So much of the gas, the methane from biodegradability is released to the environment

before gas collection systems are installed.

Morton Barlaws, he heads the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

at North Carolina State University, and he spoke June 6th on Capitol Hill at the Third Science Meets Congress

event co-hosted by Scientific American and California Congressman Jerry McNerney the the theme of this session,

solving the plastic waste problem.

Now I just answered the question from a landfill perspective.

If I were to switch hats and say, well,

is it desirable from a litter perspective sure if it

actually biodegrades and is converted to gas then the litter would

disappear and that's desirable.

But what's make sure it's really biodegrading and not just degrading into small pieces that nobody can see.

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