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Bioplastics: Are They Really the Panacea for our Plastic Pollution Woes?

Plastics are one of the greatest discovery of man-kind. It has changed the way we consume anything. Our lives are so much dependent on plastics that we can’t imagine living without them. It is extremely useful product and at the same time our greatest woe.


Plastics are petroleum based products made up of identical chemical subunits, known as monomers, that are linked together to form long chains. Plastics have become part of our daily life in a manner that it is very difficult to visualise our modern life without them. Due to plastics durability and non-biodegradable nature, disposal of it has become a great challenge. Around nine billion tons of plastics have produced in world since the1950s. 165 million tons of it have already entered the oceans and nearly nine million tons of plastic flows into the oceans every year (Please refer for more The Ocean Cleanup. A very less percentage of it gets recycled and rest of it pollutes the environment or enters the landfills where it can take up to hundreds of year to decompose while leaching toxic chemicals into the ground.

To get rid the problem associated with traditional plastics, researchers came with the idea of “bioplastics” and considered it as a significant improvement. However, it is very difficult to conclude that it is a better option for environment than traditional ones, it is a big question at present with no clear answers.


What are bioplastics?

Bioplastics are the plastics derived or synthesize from plant or other biological material (renewable sources) rather than petroleum. These are often called as bio-based plastics that refers to that the plastics made (partly) from renewable biomass e.g. cellulose, corn, sugarcane, vegetable fats and oils etc. European Bioplastic defined “bioplastic as a material that is either bio-based, biodegradable, or has both properties”.


Major benefits associated with bioplastics are reduced use of fossil fuel resources, provides potential carbon neutrality as it is based on the idea that it gives back same amount of carbon to the environment that the plants has consumed while growing up, and faster decomposition rate in certain types of bioplastics. It is also less toxic in nature and does not contain harmful chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) or phthalates as found in conventional versions.

Special mention: There are two establishment which deserves special mention are Grace Bio labs  and  ZionMarket. They are engage in R&D in the field of Bio-plastics and creating awareness among the people.


Types of bioplastics

There are mainly two types of bioplastics

Ä  PLA (Polylactic acid): it is made by extracting sugars from corn, cassava or sugarcane. It is used in making shopping bags, food packaging and other products. It is biodegradable, recyclable and compostable in nature but that does not mean our environment can easily handle it. PLA needs to be properly managed and biodegradation requires proper industrial composting facility and temperature above 58º C.

Ä  PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates): it is often used in medical devices and can be made from micro-organisms or sometimes genetically modified.



Drawbacks related with bioplastics

When we are done with bioplastics it reaches its end of life and generally discarded. They require proper management and depending upon the type of polymers used to make it, they need to be sent either in landfills, recycled, or sent in an industrial compost site. There are some drawbacks related with the management of bioplastics.

Most bioplastics need high temperature industrial composting facility to degrade but very few cities have such infrastructure to deal with it. As a result, they end up in landfills and where in anaerobic condition they produce methane gas which is a potent greenhouse gas.

If PLA leaks out in oceans it will act similarly to petroleum based plastics and will not degrade in oceans presenting a threat to marine life.

The crops that produce bioplastics can also be used to feed people. So, production of bioplastics may divert the land from growing food.

When the bioplastics are not discarded properly, PLA can get mix up with PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) in recycle bin, as both look similar and can make them impossible to recycle.

 

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