A company in England has created biodegradable shoes.
I mean really biodegradable.
If you water them they grow flowers.
That's about as biodegradable as you get.
And for thousands of citizens trying to live more environmentally friendly, biodegradability is a major selling point of a product.
Each year more and more products are trying to produce biodegradable alternatives, especially chemical, paper and packaging companies, often targeted as the most environmentally unfriendly.
But unfortunately a label of biodegradability does not mean an item is safe.
It may not even mean it's really biodegradable! The problem is that there is no agreed upon definition of biodegradable and, if there was, no managing body to enforce this definition.
This means that biodegradable could mean anything a manufacturer wanted it to.
As with the term organic and locally grown the term biodegradable is vague enough that companies can create their own definition when it suits their needs.
According to the FTC biodegradable means materials that break down over time, but the amount of time is not specified, nor are there guidelines concerning the safety of chemicals during the biodegrading process.
The unfortunate truth is that even an FDA regulation or official definition might not solve the problem.
For one thing, even if the FDA declares an that an item or chemical is "generally regarded as safe," it only means that the manufacturer informed them that it was safe, not that it was tested by the FDA themselves.
Besides that, there are other ways to get around a strict definition.
For instance, many consumers are concerned about the presence of BPA (Bisphenol A) in food containers and water bottles because of its link to autism and cancer.
Yet many biodegradable plant-based products are made with similar chemicals to harden the plastic.
However, companies can still advertise them as "BPA Free.
" Some biodegradable chemicals become toxic as they break down, and some are toxic by nature.
Nitroglycerin and cyanide are both very biodegradable, but that does not make them safe to be around.
And of course, DDT biodegrades into two chemicals which are just as dangerous as the original compound.
There is no easy solution to this problem, but being aware of it can help.
Recently we received a product which claimed to be 100% safe because it was biodegradable.
Lucky for us the president recognized that the biodegradable chemical, when mixed with an organic also in the product, could be very dangerous.
In the end, the best solution is to not trust the label no matter how many plants, smiley face suns, and biodegradable labels they put on it.
Always do your own research and understand the chemicals around your business.