Dissolving plastic has potential to be harmful

By Richard Seah Siew Sai

AN INVENTOR drinking a plastic bag sure is sensational news.

But should the media give such prominent coverage to what is, essentially, a publicity stunt aimed at raising millions of dollars for a business venture?

Dr Robert Petcavich drinks his soluble plastic bag "to prove his ‘soft drink’ is completely safe". Is it?

I can drink water from a lead pipe and not drop dead or develop diarrhoea. I can drink it every day for several years, I can even point out that people had been doing so since the time of the Roman Empire.

Does that prove anything? No. But we know, from scientific studies that lead is highly toxic.

Similarly, I can drink water from a PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic cup and not appear to suffer any adverse effects. When PVC was first Invented, it was also hailed as being completely safe.

But PVCs are today regarded as among the most dangerous plastics. Debra Lynn Dadd, who has done much research on toxic substances, writes in The Non-Toxic Home: "PVC releases vinyl chloride, which can cause cancer, birth defects, genetic changes, indigestion, chronic bronchitis, ulcers, skin diseases, deafness, vision failure, and liver dysfunction."

Perhaps Dr Petcavich has done some scientific studies to establish the safety of his soluble plastic.

Well, so have the people who produced thalidomide and a host of other pharmaceutical drugs which have been banned or withdrawn because they were found later to be harmful.

On average, pharmaceutical drugs are studied for 10 years before they are judged to be safe. Yet even that is often not enough.

Another example is DDT. The inventors said it was safe, so farmers — and government agents — sprayed it everywhere. Now we know it is extremely poisonous.

But it is too late. DDT has penetrated the environment; it is found in breast milk of 99 per cent of American women (and probably most other women in modern societies).

Although it has been banned, DDT will remain with us for a long, long time.

The people who built the nuclear power station at Chernobyl no doubt declared it to be safe as well. And what happened? One can cite many other examples.

I am not in any position to comment on the safety of Dr Petcavich’s soluble plastic. But it does have the potential to be extremely dangerous.

Lead pipes can be changed, harmful drugs can be withdrawn and banned, we can stop using PVC, we can pick up plastic bags and styrofoam containers from the beach.

But once plastic dissolves and enters the water system, it will be either impossible or very, very difficult to remove.

If it enters the soil and gets absorbed by plants, we will all be eating it, without having to stage dramatic publicity stunts.

I am not at all convinced that Dr Petcavich’s invention will "solve the problem if non-degradable plastic wastes". All it does is convert waste from visible pollution into invisible pollution.

Furthermore, it will encourage irresponsible attitudes. Why should anyone bother about not littering if the things they throw away will dissolve in 15 minutes?

When I was a child in primary school, I remember learning that the waste we produce will eventually enter rivers, flow into the sea and then "disappear" into the vast ocean.

Dr Petcavich’s invention is more sophisticated than that. But the basic idea is just as simplistic.

I hope Singapore investors — and Environment Ministry officials — will think more than twice before venturing into this.

Source : The Straits Times, July 9, 1993

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