Talk:Biodegradation

Work on this article
Sorry to say it but this article was previously badly written and requires clarification. I am in the process of updating it and making it make sense! --Alex 08:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems like this article is confused.

"Indicative lengths of degradation" seems to lend confusion to Biodegradation.
 * The plastic section states, "There are plastic materials that claim biodegradability, but are more often (and possibly more accurately) described as 'degradable' or oxy-degradable;" However the "Indicative lengths of degradation" list 450 years. (Note that I cleaned up the plastic section because it already contradicted the article by saying that plastic will "stay around forever". 450 years is a twinkle of time.
 * Degradation should be split out (and possibly referenced) if it's not the same as "biodegradation".

The "Indicative lengths of degradation" link redirects to an online vendor: worldwise.stores.yahoo.net. Therefore, unless someone can resolve this, I suggest that this part of the article be removed. --Bkengland (talk) 22:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

What no one seems to be taking into account are that different types of plastic take varying lengths of time to degrade. I'm going to edit the article under biodegration though, because I will tell you right now there is no plastic on the face of the planet that takes a million years to biodegrade, the longest time I've found from anything reliable is 450 years. The highly degradable plastics tend to take about 20 years. Not that it's worth mentioning really, they're making plastics that only take about 20 days to biodegrade now. EDIT: I also changed some other obvious incorrect times. This has to have been about the most blatantly obviously wrong wikipedia page I've seen. I also re-arranged them by degradation time, as they were out of order. 12.206.59.238 (talk) 00:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Links must be
Biodegradation is not composting according to the FTC and UCC, also according to ASTM 5511 and ASTM 5338, composting environment can only consist that of, industrial composting facilities that use 140 degrees and 10 rotations of heap mixtures in a 15 day period, which consist of the ASTM 6400. PSM and PLA do not fit in the composting measures or biodegradation methods according to: Smithsonian and American Science of 2000 "how green are green resins". Thank you

Please also reference the dictionary on Biodegradation, because according to the FTC and UCC you will notice that to claim biodegradable at all times the material will have to be eaten and digested by microbes, Bio-Batch as you can see does this, PSM and PLA starch based resins do not, they are broken down by moisture and heat which allow the microbes to internally digest this substance. It is a thermoplastic resin, I also encourage you to read on the internet what a thermoplastic resin is before coming to a "opinion" rather then an educated non biased opinion.

Biodegradation
Please explain your "opinions" on the Bio-Batch work, as well as your "opinion" on biodegradation.

According to ASTM 5511 ASTM 5338 as well as the ISO 14001.

Thank you, ASTM 6400 is a unique test made only for industrial composting facilities that do not exist in numbers in the US. Also Composting is much different then Biodegradation, you can look this up in any dictionary, and if rightfully so, then PLA and PSM do not fit in this category of composting and should be labelled as Industrial Composting Only.


 * Biodegradation is The breakdown of organic materials into simpler components by microorganisms, composting is also the breakdown of organic materials into simpler components by microorganisms and hence composting is a form of biodegradation. The Bio-Batch article reads like an advert for the Bio-Batch technology and the links you have inserted into articles such as biodegradation read very much like spam. I suggest you tweak your article to be NPOV and place links to the Bio-Batch website where it is relevant- i.e. bioplastics and on the Bio-Batch article. A link to the Bio-Batch website is not appropriate on the biodegradation article. --Alex 13:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Chemically not possible
'...is biomineralisation, in which organic matter (carbon componds)is converted to into minerals (non carbon - trace elements). Walter Hartmann 03:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a horrible idea to merge
I am coming from the perspective of a chemist who has to deal with the aspect of biodegradation of chemicals. Makes no sense to me to merge, I am taking it off. -Shootbamboo (talk) 16:27, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Is water biodegradable ?
Is water biodegradable ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.43.224.137 (talk) 22:49, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Technically, no, because pure H2O is a highly stable chemical which is not significantly degraded by natural processes on earth. However, most enviornments found on the planet will accept pure H2O in reasonable quantities without damage. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 22:55, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
 * But water molecules are split apart in the process of photosynthesis, which is a natural process. How does that not fit a definition of biodegradable, such as "capable of decaying through the action of living organisms"? 108.173.113.54 (talk) 17:28, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

"carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and biomass"
""carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and biomass" encompasses every substance in the known universe"

This sentence is wrong. "carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and biomass" means that there are no organic compounds left that are not "biomass", thus no plastics. The difference is that biomass substances decompose easily by organisms such as bacteria, or are used by other organisms.

132.76.10.41 (talk) 22:16, 18 March 2015 (UTC)