Fully degradable plastic is the real green plastic

Degradable plastic
In the mid-1980s, the United States, Novon, introduced biodegradable plastic-filled starch plastics. This so-called degradable plastic actually fills a small amount of starch into non-degradable plastic raw materials—polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride—and then processes them into various products. Due to the fact that they contain degradable starch, these products can be broken into pieces or fines after use, and these pieces or fines are still non-degradable and cannot be recovered. This kind of plastic products used to be popular all the time. There were 64 companies in the United States, and the output reached one million tons. European countries such as Japan and Germany are striving to follow suit. In the 1990s, scientists demonstrated that plastics made from polyethylene and other raw materials cannot naturally degrade in nature for hundreds of years. Therefore, filled starch plastics have little significance for the treatment of "white pollution."
In the early 1990s, some domestic companies imported 13 biodegradable plastic production lines from abroad and inaccurately promoted “degradable plastics”. As a result, all localities have risen everywhere, and more than 100 such plastic production plants have been built in China. Foreign production lines are the production lines of "filled starch plastics" that have been eliminated in the 1980s and have been eliminated in the 1990s. The production lines of "degradable plastics" have now all been discontinued. The vast majority of domestic self-developed degradable plastics production lines are also filled with starch-based production lines. Their starch content is generally between 7% and 20%. The main raw materials are still non-degradable resins such as polyethylene and polypropylene. White contamination is not a problem. The solution is to make recycling of waste plastics more difficult.
Fully degradable plastics After the 1990s, developed countries have turned to the development of truly biodegradable plastics. There are two types of fully degradable plastics: one is chemically or biodegradable plastics, such as polycarbonate and other photodegradable plastics, polylactic acid plastics, PHB and other biodegradable plastics. The cost of these plastics is too high, and the cost per ton is more than 7,000 US dollars. They can only be used as high-priced products such as pharmaceutical packaging materials, and can not replace ordinary plastics that are used in large quantities.
The second category is biodegradable plastics with natural products as the main raw material. All-starch plastic is one of the more successful ones. Italy's Ferizz company first introduced full-starch thermoplastics, claiming that the starch content is above 90%, and the remaining additives are all degradable, thus ensuring 100% degradation of the material. Afterwards, the United States Waner-Lanber Company and Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation also announced the successful development.
Japan's Toyota made auto parts using sweet potato starch plastic, and published an article titled "Sweet Potatoes Save the Earth" in Japan's "Time" magazine (May 13, 2002). Japan's Fujitsu Company released in June 2002 that biodegradable plastics processed from cornstarch have been used in the enclosures of the FMV-BIBLO NB series laptops that were produced. In 2004, they all replaced refractory plastic parts and launched "all Corn Computer."
Cartridge Corporation of the United States has produced a large number of daily degradable plastic cups, plates, bottles, boxes, and cloths for garments made of corn starch; Startech and KTM Industries produce various types of packaging for fully degradable plastics. material. The United States "Washington Post" issued a special article for this purpose, proposing that PLA (polylactide) biomaterials using corn starch as a raw material are already available in the United States and have been used in all sectors of the manufacturing industry to complete the use of raw starch materials. Degradable plastics will replace the use of petrochemicals as a raw material for hard-degradable plastics has become a worldwide trend.
Under the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Tianjin University and Jiangxi Academy of Sciences also conducted basic research on starch thermoplasticization. The National “863 High-tech Development Program” supports Nanjing Huanlv Company and Huazhong Agricultural University, which are engaged in the development of fully degradable plastics. The preliminary tableware products have been successfully developed, and agricultural films and living membranes have also made important progress.
In recent years, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and other places in China have issued bans on some plastic living products one after another. All degradable plastic products will become environmentally friendly materials with huge market potential and ecological benefits.