[9]In response to a story first reported by FoodProductionDaily.com and cited by GreenerPackage.com (see “Oxo-bio association defends environmental claims” [10]) Steven Mojo, executive director of the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), [11] sent a letter to the publications to clarify some information cited by Gerald Scott, Professor Emeritus in Chemistry and Polymer Science of Aston University and chairman of the Oxo-Biodegradable Plastics Association (OPA) [12]on ASTM D6954.
Indicative of the furious state of debate surrounding oxo-biodegradability, Scott’s comments were a response to a position paper published by European Bioplastics [13] (see “European Bioplastics distances itself from ‘oxo-bio’ industry.” [14])
in which it questioned the claims of the oxo-bio industry.
The full content of Mojo’s letter follows:
August 11, 2009
Rory Harrington—FoodProductionDaily.com
Re: “Oxo-bio industry says product claims are valid”
Dear Ms. Harrington:
This note is in response to the article originally published in FoodProductionDaily.com on August 4, 2009 and reported in GreenerPackage.com, regarding Dr. Scott’s comments on ASTM D6954. While his comments are partially correct, Dr. Scott’s interpretation of the document is incorrect.
As background, I collaborated with Graham Swift (a former Board Member of EPI, an oxo additive supplier) to create this standard, along with other members of the ASTM sub-committee D20.96. We worked for 2-3 years to create this document, which is titled:
• “Standard Guide for Exposing and Testing Plastics that Degrade in the Environment by a Combination of Oxidation and Biodegradation.”
What is important to recognize is that this document is a “Standard Guide” and not a “Standard Specification.” While this document is a recognized ASTM Standard, as a guide, ASTM D6954 does not contain any pass/fail criteria, as are found in specifications such as ASTM D6400 or the CEN Norm, EN 13432. The definitions in the ASTM Form and Style Guide provide insight into the differences between these two types of documents:
• “guide, n—a compendium of information or series of options that does not recommend a specific course of action. DISCUSSION—A guide increases the awareness of information and approaches in a given subject area.”
• “specification, n—an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, system or service. DISCUSSION—Examples of specifications include, but are not limited to, requirements for; physical, mechanical, or chemical properties, and safety, quality, or performance criteria. A specification identifies the test methods for determining whether each of the requirements is satisfied.”
The intended goal of ASTM D6954 was to provide a set of directions for suppliers that were looking for ways to generate and report data (in a consistent format) demonstrating that their additives would in fact foster biodegradation, as claimed. This is clearly stated in the Scope of the Guide:
“This guide provides a framework or road map to compare and rank the controlled laboratory rates of degradation and degree of physical property losses of polymers by thermal and photooxidation processes as well as the biodegradation and ecological impacts in defined applications and disposal environments after degradation.”
The 60% criteria that Dr. Scott refers to is not a “pass/fail” threshold but rather the point after which the testing may be stopped and reported. This criteria was intended to prevent manufacturers from achieving very low levels of conversion to carbon dioxide or methane and then reporting on material performance. Below is the test from Section 6:
6.6.1 “For products consisting of a single polymer (homopolymers or random copolymers), 60% of the organic carbon must be converted to carbon dioxide before ending the test, and the gel content generated in Tier 1 must be no higher than 10%.
NOTE 7—Testing may be continued to determine better the length of time the materials will take to biodegrade.”
If this section is confusing to the additive suppliers, it will be revised in the next update of this standard, which is due shortly.
As stated previously the goal of ASTM D6954 was to provide suppliers a method for generating and PRESENTING data from which the scientific community and customers could draw their own conclusion.
What is disappointing is that so little data has been reported since ASTM D6954 was created. For example, no data has ever been shown to support claims like:
• “With Perf Go Green, In 2 years, 1 bag leaves nothing harmful behind, Nothing”
• “Reverte™ - which when added to the PET plastic resins at the manufacturing stage of bottles, will cause the finished PET bottle to oxo-biodegrade after a specifically programmed shelf life – in landfills/streams/rivers etc.” (Planet Green Bottle)
Additives to traditional resins to promote biodegradation may well have value in specific applications and disposal pathways. Until the community of additive suppliers correctly uses documents, such as ASTM D6954, to generate and publicly report data, their far reaching and unsupported claims of “biodegradability” will continue to be met with skepticism.
Regards
Steven Mojo
BPI Executive Director
This final "statement" does show that the debate has gone completely wrong.
I like to quote the Article in FoodProductionDaily by Rory Harrington, 03-Aug-2009: "Bioplastics must be more than green to deliver long-term growth" and the study called “Growing Tomorrow’s Green Materials.” The report concludes: “Consumer concerns about conventional polymers will continue to rise, but economic issues will be the primary drivers of green materials’ adoption by corporations and consumers alike.”
Bioplastic actors should understand that you can't make standards or norms and force the market into the use of some technology unless the economic issues, low price, etc. are being fulfilled. Composting is not the final solution; it is just one way to define normal biodegradation.
Admit it Steve – Professor Scott has burst your bubble! For years Steve Mojo has been telling us that the Standards for compostable plastics (EN13432, ASTM D6400, ISO17088 etc.) are the only Standards for testing biodegradable plastic. Prof. Scott has made it clear (www.biodeg.org) that this is not the case. He is one of the world’s most distinguished polymer scientists, and if he is satisfied that oxo-bio plastic is fully biodegradable that’s good enough for me.
Prof. Scott indentifies ASTM D6954, as the appropriate Standard Guide for oxo-biodegradation. Faced with this disaster Steve tries to dismiss 6954 by claiming it is not a “Standard Specification”. Prof Scott says that a Standard Specification is not relevant except for specific applications, and points out that if 60% mineralisation is not achieved, the 6954 test cannot be completed. If that’s not a pass/fail criterion, I don’t know what is. It is not confusing and does not need “clarification” – especially not by Mojo’s organisation.
Even the name of Steve’s organisation is misleading. “Biodegradable Products Institute” – sounds official and independent doesn’t it? In fact it’s a trade association. It is certainly not independent, as it exists to promote the interests of the hydro-biodegradable or “compostable” plastics industry. Please Steve, stop trying to manipulate the standards system, and stick to selling your compostable plastic on its merits - if it has any (though as Prof. Scott points out, it is useless even in compost).
Here are two interesting recent news items related to this debate. It seems to be leaning more toward rational, science-based claims:
1.More questions raised about oxo-degradable claims
By Mike Verespej, Plastics News
Posted 29 January 2010 10:08 am GMT
"The Bioplastics Council of the US-based Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) has joined the growing number of voices questioning the scientific validity of biodegradability claims made by producers of oxo-degradable and oxo-biodegradable products."
http://www.prw.com/subscriber/headlines2.html?cat=1&id=1264759707
2. from the Federal Trade Commission in December
"... the Commission is reviewing its Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, 16 C.F.R. Part 260, including the section on degradable claims. While we have not completed this review, Commission staff has found no evidence (e.g., testing protocols,
public comments, or articles) persuasively arguing that products destined for landfills, incinerators, or recycling centers will totally decompose in a short period of time consistent with consumer expectations of unqualified degradable claims. Thus, it appears that unqualified degradable claims are likely to be deceptive for items so disposed. The Commission may include guidance to this effect in any future announcement relating to the Green Guides review.
http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9336/091218dynaletter.pdf [15]
I beleive the oxo degradable industry have a lot to answer for. There are many claims that I keep reading about are unsubstantiated. Most could be resolved with some sense too.
1) An oxo product requires oxygen to break down. No oxygen, no degradation. That is simple.
2) People generally dispose products to a landfill. About 60% of plastics go to a landfill and 40% are recycled. Once in a landfill they are going to get buried. No oxygen is present once own about 1 m or so. So for the oxo people to claim their product can go to a landfill and degrade is false advertising. For the 40% that is recycled, you do NOT was oxo additives in that plastic as it would start breaking down the new product. So Oxo products cannot be used in plastics that should go into the recycling scheme.
3) Oxo manufacturers lean on their statement that their products are good for addressing the plastic litter problem. Again a simple thought will provide insight to this. We do not like litter around at all. So if an oxo modified plastic item has to stick around as litter for several years before it breaks down then, that is a very undesirable situation. That claim is very misleading.
4) No one seems to discuss too much that oxo products when they degrade turn a single piece of plastic into lots and lots of little pieces of plastic. Where did we ever say that is a good thing to do. 1000's of pieces of plastic blowing in the wind or washing down our waterways has to be much worse off for the environment, than the original single plastic item. A review of the findings of people studying the effects of plastic on ocean wildlife shows the smaller the plastic item the more likely it is to be injested by fish and birds. That leads to a horrible death. The oxo industry are it seems basing their whole premise on, once a plastic item has gone out of site by breaking down into lots of little peices, then we will be happy. Out of site out of mind. But the opposite is true. A plastic bottle on the ground is ugle litter, but 1000 bits of that bottle scattered around the environment, not visible to the casusl eye, is a whole lot worse of a situation.
5) The claim of biodegradation in a landfill. According to a 2010 report out of Loughborough Univerity commissioned by the DEFRA in the UK, says there is little evidence to support these claims. They present a few studies that claimed it did happen, but their review said and stated why these were misleading reports. For naturally occuring bacteria to attack a plastic molecule and break it down, that molecule would have to be very very small. So we are now not talking about a bottle breaking down to 1000 parts but 100,000s of peices. That has to be even worse for the environment. Do we want plastic sand everywhere?
Composters have their own set of claims. WHile composting is a good process and works well, there are very few facilities around which means a very small portion of plastic waste ever goes to a compost facility, rather it goes to a landfill. Compostable materials do NOT break down in a landfill. So as a valid disposal option, composting has only a tiny role to play if any.
The newer biodegradable additives like ECOPURE will biodegrade a plastic item in an aerobic or anaerobic environment. Plastics with this additive can just to a landfill like they are now and there they will biodegrade away. No special claims of it has to be at the top of a landfill like the oxo people require or no special temps as the compost people require. As for methane, the more methane we generate the more we can capture and turn into energy, freeing us of imported petroleum and that has to be a very good thing.
So readers of this can make their own minds up, the oxo and the composters are just not what we want in society, there are too many problems. A simple biodegrading additive like Ecopure or EcoOne are just that. A simple way to rid us of our plastics problem.
I like to give you a few comments concerning the oxobio technology. The additives have only the purpose to prepare plastics molecules (the disintegration phase) to be digested by microbes if the final material is in such an environment. The issue with oxobio is not if it works or not, there are very many scientific reports and certified tests available to prove this (very many just to find on internet also), the issue is that the suppliers of oxobio do recommend too low concentration of the additives in order to get the business. One issue all suppliers of oxobio are aware of is that a low concentration like around 1% will not guarantee that the additive is homogenous spread in the final product and thus the technology might work or might not work. The technology itself is viable for a product to become biodegradable. I would say that the suppliers are marketing and selling viability, but when it comes to the final delivery and inclusion in the application this might not be viable, because of the low concentration. The only purpose of having a low concentration is to have a low impact on the final cost for the producer. As from a marketing point of view the oxobio market is a mature market with a number of established producers and in a mature market very often the competitive strategy the participants have to get the business is to compete on price primarily. This is exactly the case here. Thus the low inclusion rate and thus the potential viability issue. This is normal for any technology unless someone is breaking the behaviour. So called vegetable based plastics, starch etc, producers will have the same problem in due time when they compete on the market. The major issue in reality is instead that very few producers and also retailers believe that an added value should provide any extra cost to the product. In a mass market like plastics packaging this is the issue.
You should also read the very comprehensive report on carrier bags published by the UK Environment Agency recently http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Research/Carrier_B... [16] and make your own conclusions.
This will give you perspective.
Thanks for the last reply. I tried the link but it did not work. This was a recent report that I found quite interesting on the short comings of Oxo-degradable products. 'EV0422
Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Oxo-degradable Plastics Across Their Life Cycle' A google search will bring it up.
You say oxo additives cause the disintegration of the plastic and when those pieces are put in a bacteria environment, the bacteria will digest them. The question I have is, if a item with an oxo additive in it, is disposed of normally, as it into trash then to a landfill, where it gets buried and there is no light or little oxygen for the chemcial reaction to progress, then how can the plastic item break down.
How small does the polymeric chain have to be before bacteria can digest it? If the original molecules are long and the bacteria cannot disgest them, then if an item like a plastic bag item breaks down into say 100 fragements, then those peices are still very large with respect to the size of bacteria. It would seem that the bag has to break down into millions of fragements before bacteria can start to attack them? This is what various website are purporting. From what the information available about oxo products that I have come across, explains is that the plastic items with oxo additives will not break down in a landfill for the above reasons. This is clearly stated on the Oxoalliance website. I came across one website of a large oxo manufacture that said products with their additive in them will break down in a landfill. Then further reading down the site it clarified that the break down in a landfill if they are at the top of the landfill where there is still oxygen present. This I thought was quite misleading. Another website mentions a test they performed to verify their products would fragment where by they 'hung a bag on a fence'. Now we have those fragments blowing around in the environment.
The report mentioned above looks into some of the studies where claims of biodegradation were made and it mentions errors or where the authors neglected to provide some details that affected the results.
These newer biodegradable additives (Ecopure, EcoOne) seem to have so much more going for them as far as simplicity is concerned. Dispose of a bag in a landfill and it breaks down by bacterial action. Doesn't matter if there is oxygen or light present or not. No special temperature is required. They do not break down on the surface so there are no little plastic fragments blowing around. Products with these additives in can be put back into the recycling stream (unlike oxo products) and new products made. These new products would then have the ability to biodegrade once they were discarded to a landfill. They can sit on a shelf indefinitely as there is no degradatio action until they disposed to an environment with bacteria present.
Your comment about manufacturers cutting back on the additive to keep the costs down is sad but probably true. No one could verify the results so they could never get pulled up on it. Once again the economics overshadows the real environmental reason we are all doing this for.
Sorry you could´n get the report. I suppose they don´t have available as easy as before. It´s a pdf formate report called "Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags Report: SC030148" Published by UK Environmental Agency in end Feb 2011. I could send you the report if I have your email address.
To comment the potential biodegradability and fragmentation. As in aerobic biodegradation there is some standards on how to determine the degradation and then the biodegradation. You are maybe aware of this already. The fragmentaion is called ISO20200 and the biodegradation leading to compost is called ISO14855. There are oxobio system which fulfill the ISO20200 but not the ISO14855. The major issue is that these tests are limit in time as they have the only purpose to prove that a product is to be composted and that period is stated to be max 180 days if the compost is to be approved. Oxobio will have a problem to achieve the time based on technology reasons.. In order that the microbes are to start digesting the polymer molecules, the molecules need to be around 1/20 of the size it had from the beginning. If that is taking time the biodegradation will also take longer time, naturally. The oxobio system is also changing the properties of the plastics by making it being hydrophillic ("water dispersible") and not the opposite like normal plastics - hydrophobic. Being hydrophillic is also more attractive to the microbes, bacteria.
The nonareobic technologies, Ecopure etc ate not really suitable for aerobic applications even if it seem like they are suitable.. They surely biodegrade plastics in anaerobic environments (landfills), but the process in general is very slow and if they do it under aerobic conditions is is even slower. There is no "one" solution to the problem but several options if you like to go for low carbon footprint alternative at also la ow cost.
Hi There, sorry for the delay. You had asked for the email address. Here it is info@biodegradablegreenplastics.com
Thanks and look forwards to the Life Cycle accessment report.
regards
Dr RossH
Ross H is correct that an oxo-bio plastic product requires oxygen to degrade, and will not therefore degrade in parts of a landfill which are anaerobic. No responsible oxo company claims otherwise. Why in any event would you want plastic to degrade in landfill? A landfill operator needs stability and does not want material degrading in anaerobic conditions and producing methane, unless the landfill is designed to collect the gas. Landfill is not the primary purpose of oxo-bio plastic.
Ross H is also correct that compostable plastics provide no benefit in landfill. They do not even provide a benefit in compost, because they are required to turn themselves into CO2 gas within 180 days. This contributes to climate change but does not improve the soil.
He is not correct about recycling oxo-bio products, as they can in fact be recycled together with normal plastics http://www.biodeg.org/position-papers/recycling/?domain=biodeg.org [17] However, hydro-biodegradable or “compostable” plastics can not be recycled together with normal plastics, and anyone who is concerned about recycling should therefore be calling for hydro-biodegradable (“compostable”) plastics to be banned. The packaging manager of Tesco (Britain’s largest supermarket) said on 20th October 2009 that the supermarket “does not see the value in packaging that can only be industrially composted” and that “city authorities do not want it, as it can contaminate existing recycling schemes.”
Of course nobody likes litter lying or floating around at all, but Ross H should look around him in the real world. When the day dawns that there is no plastic waste in the environment there will be no need for oxo-biodegradable plastic, but that day is very many years in the future. In the meantime all short-life plastic products should be oxo-bio so that they will degrade much faster than ordinary plastic if they do get into the open environment. Of course they will not degrade immediately, because they are designed to be re-used many times. For a video of oxo-bio plastic degrading see http://degradable.net/play-videos/4 [18]
It is correct that ordinary plastic will eventually break down into tiny pieces of plastic, but this is not the case with oxo-bio plastic. It is converted into a low molecular-mass material which is inherently biodegradable on land or sea. The issue is not the physical size of the fragments, but the molecular-weight. Below 20,000 Daltons the material is no longer a plastic. The studies on marine litter to which Ross H refers are about ordinary plastic. If all the plastic in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” had been made with oxo-bio, it would not be there at all.
The Loughborough report to which he refers, confirms that oxo-bio plastic does degrade, and that it does biodegrade, though not as quickly as compostable plastic degrades in an industrial composting unit. However, most compostable plastics will not readily degrade at all in the open environment. The report also confirms that oxo-bio plastic contains no heavy metals and is not toxic, that it is safe for direct food contact, and that there is no evidence of bio-accumulation nor of any harmful effect on the environment.
A Report published by the Environment Agency of the UK Government in February 2011 (see http://degradable.net/welcome/key-news-items/ [19] ) shows that oxo-bio plastic bags have a better LCA than compostable plastic bags.
The market for oxo-biodegradable plastic is not mature. The whole oxo-bio industry has less than 1% of the plastic products which could and should be made oxo-biodegradable, but appreciation of the benefits of oxo-bio plastic is growing fast all over the world. Symphony alone sold enough d2w last year to make 8 billion plastic products, and is now represented in 92 countries through 67 Distributors.
With regard to “Sustainable Citizen’s” point about addition-rate - it is true that some oxo-bio additives have to be added at 2%, 3% or even more, but Symphony’s d2w additive has been proved to work very well at only 1%.
Discussing landfills: In most of the western world, landfill space has become very expensive. The cost to open a new landfill is high with the permitting costs and the land cost itself. In places like the eastern seaboard of the USA or Europe where the population density is high, there is an incentive to maximise the input that can go into a landfill. Some of the larger waste management companies are now promoting the use of biodegradable materials to be used in their landfills. They do not want items that will sit there taking up valuable space like oxo materials do. Some modern landfills even go to the next step of recirculating the leachate that collects in the bottom of the landfill. This makes the landfill a proactive bioreactor and allows the spread of bacteria and the moistening of the landfill material which accelerates biodegradation by a significant amount. All of this allows the landfill to compact down more and allows the operator to continue to dump more material in it, thus reducing their costs. In some low density areas where land is still low cost, then your point about not wanting landfills to settle after they are closed has merit. However as our population grows and more trash must be disposed of, those situations will become fewer and further between.
As for methane collection, the more methane that can be generated the sooner the gas can be harnessed for energy. This is a good thing. As I stated before, for countries to become less reliant on other countries for their energy supplies is an important security issue. Denmark doesn’t get 20% of its power from windmills because they like windmills.
It seems we agree on compostable materials as having limited applications to recycling. Also for biodegradation because their facilities are few and far between and their trash requires special sorting to separate it out before hand.
Litter is a real world problem and many of us spend a lot of time picking up litter to remove it. Some local councils designate a significant part of their budget for litter pick up. Sad but true. The reason we pick it up is because it is an eyesore. The message the oxo manufacturers put out about their product controlling litter does not make sense. In the reply above the statement, ‘they do not want it to break down immediately because they are designed to be re-used many times’ has two problems with it. First the oxo additive manufacturer has no control of how the final product manufacturer designs his product, so whether it is designed for many reuses is not under their control. Second, if the product was designed for a life time equivalent for many uses then the litter with the oxo additive in it will last that long too. My guess is that typically would be a few years. I myself do not want to leave litter lying around two years or so before it starts to break down. When I see litter, I pick it up then and there. Many city councils also operate weekly litter clean ups. Litter is ugly to most of us and we are not prepared to let it lie there for a few years just because it has some additive in it that will break it down at some point in the future. The only time litter is not picked up soon after it is dropped is in some locations where people do not often walk. The side of a highway is an example. But even there on busy highways, there are cleanup crews periodically out there picking up litter. One point that needs clarification is the biodegradation. If there are no bacteria around there is no biodegradation. There are not many bacteria around on the ground on the side of a highway. So this claim by oxo people of biodegradation has to be qualified to biodegrade in the presence of oxygen and bacteria. If the environment is such that there are bacteria on the side of the highway, then surely, using a biodegradable additive instead is a better alternative. It may be a little slower due to less surface area to act upon, but the object remains in nearly a single piece during the degradation. The oxo product would break it down in to thousands of pieces which are more likely to be picked up and blown around the place, or get washed down a waterway. To me this scenario is a lot worse. There is no additive solution that I know that will solve a litter problem with plastics and the oxo people should cease to say they have a solution for litter. Their claim is based on ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and most people know better than that. They know what is good and what is bad for the environment.
In the previous post, the Ecopure type of biodegradable additives was described as not suitable for aerobic environments. This is not true. These products work in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Tests of non compostable plastic with the additive in it in a compost pile showed good degradation. The only time they are slow in an aerobic environment is when there are not many bacteria available, which is on the top of the ground, in water etc, but that puts the same restraint on oxo products biodegrading as well.
With the reference to the statement that 20,000 Daltons as the size the material ceases to become a plastic, I do not understand what the implication was; sorry. 20,000 Daltons is only about 1700 carbon atoms long which is very small. Was the point that the plastic had to break down to that size before biodegradation would start? The previous comment from Sustainable Citizen said the molecule had to be 1/20th of the original size before biodegradation could take place. That is considerably larger. What do your test results show?
As for recycling of products with an oxo additive in it, the reference given above from the Oxo-biodegradable Plastics Association says they can be recycled. However reading between the lines of this makes the reader quite aware of the problems associated with recycling a product that has a time line associated with it before it starts to break down. How would a recycle facility know if an oxo additive had been added to the original product? What if the recycled product had a longer life than anticipated before it was sold? What if it was sold and the customer could not use it for a while? This site did little to dispel the concerns of recycling oxo degradable plastics.
Finally the comment of If all the plastic in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” had been made with oxo-bio, it would not be there at all, causes me great concern. I agree that the plastics with an oxo additive in it would have broken down, that is not in question. However what sets alarm bells off is what happens to these now small plastic fragments. Saying they are ‘inherently biodegradable’ is fine, but saying they will biodegrade is quite a different thing. If there are insufficient bacteria in the ocean they will not be biodegrading. Research shows that as the plastic pieces float through the water they adsorb toxins they come in contact with. Research articles from people like Captain Charles Moore and others present results of expeditions which have gone out and trawled through the garbage patch with nets, then dissected the fish. Their results show the fish are ingesting these small pieces of plastic. The record holder was one fish with 83 pieces of plastic inside its’stomach. For the really small shards of plastic that are of the same size as plankton, then the fish and mammals that swim through the water filtering out plankton as food, would also be collecting the plastic and ingesting it. In the largest gyre, located in the central North Pacific, neuston (surface) trawls lined with 0.333mm mesh yielded the astounding figure of six kilos of plastic fragments for every kilo of zooplankton 40.333mm in size. Detritus feeders, like the Laysan albatross, have been demonstrated to feed primarily in and around the North Pacific subtropical gyre, and the stomach contents of their chicks, receiving nutriment only by regurgitation from adult birds, contain alarming quantities of plastic. This presents a real problem for those who eat fish. Not only are they eating fish that have small pieces of plastic in them, they are also digesting the toxins that were on those plastic shards. We would be better off to not cause those plastic items to break down but leave them in their original large size and mechanically go collect the trash. It would be very expensive and I can hear governments saying ‘they didn’t so it so they are not going to pay to clean it up’, but that has to be better than eating the fish described above. Another comment the oxo group use to confuse people is that once the item has broken down it is gone. That is not fully true. It may be gone from sight, but the particles still remain and can be causing damage that we cannot see with our eyes. Only our health in the future will show this, which by then, will be too late and the oxo manufacturers would have already made their returns long ago.