The media and general public refer to plastics as being either ‘good plastic’ (usually referring to those plastics that can be recycled or that photodegrade so they don’t take up landfill space); and ‘bad plastic’  (usually referring to plastics that can’t be recycled or that leach harmful chemicals residually into food, skin and environment). But the reality is ALL plastics, ‘good’ and ‘bad’,  have three major environmental impact strikes against them:

1. All but a small handful of plastics are made from non-renewable petroleum and natural gas, so the manufacture and use of the majority of types of plastic contribute to world resource depletion.
2. Plastic manufacturing is a major source of industrial pollution. You might be surprised to learn that the production of a single 16-oz. PETE bottle generates more than 100 times the toxic emissions to air and water than making the same size bottle out of glass. Major emissions from plastic production processes include sulfur oxides and nitrous oxides (both of which contribute to global warming) and the chemicals styrene, benzene and trichloroethane which are known toxins.
3. Discarded and recycled plastic lingers on our planet indefinitely because literally nothing in nature can break apart the molecular bonds that are created when plastic is formed from a petroleum base.  ’Good’ Plastic can only be repurposed and recycled so many times before it eventually ends up in a landfill or as ‘litter’ in the environment. Even photodegradable plastic, which disintegrates to a plastic dust when exposed to sunlight, still retains remains a chemical polymer just ends up in mixed in our soil, as particulate air pollution and dissolved in the water supply. Throughout the earth’s water system, those plastic dust particles attract and absorb other harmful chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the pesticide DDT. The contaminated plastic dust is inevitably ingested by fish, and then by us, when those fish wind up on our dinner plates!

In light of these factual  truths about plastic, I have opted not to include a value assessment in my “Types of Plastics” articles indicating whether each is currently considered to be a good vs. bad plastic. The term good plastic is only ‘good’ relative to other plastics, and not relative to it’s overall environmental impact or product alternatives. Some plastics are better than others, but until green technology produces a fully biodegradable, non-leaching plastic out of renewable raw resources, the choice between one plastic or another is to select the “lessor of two evils”, and no plastic can in good conscience be called “good plastic”.