They make PLA ones, advertised as biodegradable, but AFAIK the settings for them to biodegrade never happen in nature, it's ever so slightly better than the alternatives but far from perfect, or even good.
> PLA is only biodegradable under industrial composting conditions and anaerobic digestion – there is no evidence of PLA being biodegradable in soil, home compost or landfill environment.
I read up on PLA when I got my 3D printer because it's popular material for that. From what I understand, it's biodegradable above 50° C. Not something you'll find outside Death Valley. Still better than most other options, but it would be nice if we had something that was stable for weeks and then degrades nicely.
Not all PLA are created equal though. Raw PLA pellets won't behave the same way a 3d printer filament choke full of dyes, additives to make them more UV resistance, &c.
There are plenty of posts of people putting 3d prints in compost piles, for months or years, and visually not much happens. Even stuff advertiser as bio don't fare that well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tavrkWrazWI
If you dig up a sufficiently old landfill you’ll find pristine newspapers.
The idea that you can coat much more resilient stuff in PFAS and label it “biodegradable” is at least as big a scam as California’s $0.10 “reusable” bags, or mixed stream recycling.
I’m for taking each use of plastic, by global volume, and then banning them, in order.
We should probably start with fishing nets.
Alternatively, the industry should need to produce 200% as much post-consumer recycled plastic made from the same grade as they’re manufacturing. This would act as a tax, strongly encouraging investment in more sustainable materials. Maybe drop that to 150% if the plastic in the product is 100% recycled.
Not patronising, this was exactly my first (and off-topic) thought as well.
We have lived in our house for +15 years and we still regularly find small fluorescent yellow ball bearings in the garden soil from the previous owners family. These things are here to stay
I haven’t played with airsoft since I was a kid, but I remember the biodegradable ones back then had issues. They would fall apart when you shot em, sometimes deteriorate inside the gun and muck it up.
"Running around in the woods, firing small plastic pellets at other people, in pursuit of a contrived-to-be-fun mission, turns out to be, well, fun."
I was wondering if there are no biodegradable bullets for Airsoft and found out that they exist. Maybe a better solution than plastic in the woods.