The ban on single-use plastic bags in Oman, which came into effect in 2021, has yet to achieve the expected outcome of 100% compliance, as disclosed by a senior official from the Environment Authority (EA). Fast forward three years, and the EA has announced a plan to ban the use of all kinds of plastic shopping bags by January 2027.

But according to Symphony Environmental, a world leader in environmentally-friendly packaging, plastic products are usually the best materials for the job, and have the best life-cycle assessment. See https://www.biodeg.org/subjects-of-interest/life-cycle-assessments/  They are for example much better than paper https://www.biodeg.org/subjects-of-interest/paper-bags/ 

Michael Laurier, CEO of Symphony, said: “the process of implementing a plastic bag ban is a challenging task and it would be better to find a sustainable alternative.

We have noticed that plastic bans are being driven in several countries by plastiphobia, but this is already out of date. Plastiphobia arose because plastic can create microplastics and can lie or float around for decades if it gets into the open environment, but this can now be prevented by upgrading the plastic with Symphony’s d2w® technology at manufacture, instead of depriving people of their plastic products.

Our d2w® masterbatch technology is paving the way towards a more sustainable future, because plastic products can be made with d2w at little or no extra cost and will convert rapidly at end of life into biodegradable materials, anywhere on the planet so long as oxygen is available. They are then consumed by micro-organisms like fungi and bacteria in a quick and safe manner and are assimilated back into the natural environment. Sunlight and heat will accelerate the process, but d2w plastic will biodegrade much more quickly, even in cold dark conditions, than ordinary plastic in the same place.

However, the same cannot be said for plastics marketed as “compostable” because they are designed to biodegrade under specific, human-driven conditions, mainly in industrial composting facilities. This means unlike d2w biodegradation - which is a natural process, composting involves human intervention. Also the “compostable” plastic will not turn into compost but rather into CO2, causing more harm to the environment

D2w® has been used globally for the past 15 years, and is compulsory for a wide range of products in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Yemen. If it were made compulsory in Oman too it would be an excellent approach to a more sustainable future.”