Answer:
Plastics in general are harmful to the environment because they are here for 500-1000 years, and if left to be in the sun and oxygen, will fragment into smaller pieces. These smaller pieces are then mistaken by wildlife as food, and ultimately humankind eats this wildlife to complete a full, unhealthy circle. With plastic fragmentation being the enemy, OXO-degradable plastics are not eliminating the problem, but rather adding to it by accelerating this process. Also, OXO-degradable plastics add heavy metals and salts into the plastic to make it oxidize, thus leaving behind possibly toxic contaminates. In addition, there is no scientific data showing OXO-degradable plastic to be considered biodegradable (meaning that is is edible like other carbon based material) so it should not be considered biodegradable, but rather only fragmentable or degradable.
Plastics are a wonderful invention that are obviously too convenient and entrenched in our human life-style to discontinue using. What we need is new plastic materials that can work in harmony with the environment rather than be a scourge to the environment. Like truly biodegradable plastics -making plastics earth friendly (like Enso Plastics) because nature, through microbial activity, can take care of the problem for us if we let it.
-Del Andrus