Everyone has seen them: those plastic shopping bags stuck on a tree branch or sailing down the street on a windy day.

But not everybody thinks about what those bags are doing to the environment, given plastic takes hundreds of years to break down in landfills and plastic bags are blamed for killing marine life.

Tony Tracy, who has been in the plastics business for more than 10 years, did. As result, he's coming out with a line of plastic garbage bags called Perf GoGreen that uses recycled plastic and is biodegradable.

“I had been selling regular plastic bags, and my daughter said plastic is a problem,’’ said Tracy. “It got me thinking and I made the decision Perf GoGreen wouldn’t make anything that was harmful to the plant.”

The kitchen, lawn-and-leaf and commercial garbage bags use recyclable plastic bags combined with a proprietary additive called OXO-Biodegradable, which degrades the bags into carbon dioxide, water or biomass when exposed to natural elements like sunlight or wind. The company claims the additive speeds up the breakdown process to between 12 and 24 months and benefits the environment because the speedy degradation saves on landfill space.

Perf GoGreen’s garbage bags aren’t 100% biodegradable, given the company is using plastic to make the bags. But it is still viewed as a greener alternative.

“There are materials that are truly 100% biodegradable…but they end up being more expensive,’’ said Steve McCarthy, professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he teaches in the plastics engineering department and is director of the Biodegradable Polymer Research Institute. “What some companies attempted to do is take normal plastics and put in an additive and try to call them biodegradable but it’s not true. What ends up happening is it breaks into tiny pieces of polyethylene which stays around for a 100 years.”

The use of plastic bags has become such a problem that some cities and countries have even taken the step to ban them or place a fee on the use of the plastic bags. Last March, San Francisco banned large supermarkets and pharmacies from using plastic checkout bags and cities including Austin, Boston and Portland, Ore., are just a few that are considering bans or fees associated with plastic bags. Even China in January announced a national ban on plastic checkout bags starting on June 1.  

“Perf GoGreen’s philosophy is that it’s important to start with recycled plastics so we are actively removing plastic waste from the environment and to this we add our OXO-Biodegradable plastic additive,’’ said Linda Daniels, chief marketing officer at Perf GoGreen, in an email. “We are biodegradable and 100% degradable returning to nature as water, carbon dioxide and bio-mass. We are linear low density polyethylene plastic.”

For Perf GoGreen’s part, the company plans to make kitty-litter liners, diapers, straws and even dry-cleaning packaging using its additive and recycled plastic in addition to garbage bags. The products can be bought on the company’s Web site in the next 90 days and eventually at retailers.

It’s also launching a recycling program, called Go Green 21.0 in which it provides schools in the Tri-State-Area--and eventually around the country--with bins so students can dispose plastic bags, which Perf GoGreen will pick up and recycle. Students get paid per pound of bags they dispose in the bin. The company, which is working with the Key Club, the high school service group that promotes community service, on this initiative will also provide educational materials for the schools on greener plastics. 

Perf GoGreen isn’t the only company trying to address the plastic bag issue. A slew of companies are coming out with reusable bags that are designed to replace plastic bags. There are also companies that use corn-based additives to make bags, but Tracy argues those bags aren’t as strong and have a shorter shelf life. 

At a time when rising oil prices and a warming planet is resonating with consumers across the world, companies are increasingly trying to capitalize on the green movement.  But like every industry, there is a level of hype or what is now coined “greenwashing” going on.

Greenwashing is basically any marketing claim that provides inaccurate or misleading information on the environmental benefits of a product or service, said Scot Case, of TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, a Philadelphia environmental-marketing company.

It’s become such an issue as environmental consciousness has grown that Case said the Federal Trade Commission is currently holding hearings to update the agency’s marketing guidelines for green products. Case said consumers should look for products that meet “well-respected environment standards” such as those produced with the EcoLogo or Green Seal, which are groups that certify green products.

“That would mean someone had actually defined what an environmentally friendly garbage bag would be and then they would ensure that it meets that standard,” said Case.

And while consumers want to be greener, buying these green products come with an added cost. According to Tracy, Perf Go Green’s bags will cost a few pennies more per bag. But are consumers willing to pay?

“There’s a little more premium price,’’ said Tracy. “It’s about the environment. You pay now or you pay later.”