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Light My Fire Bioplastics

BIOPLASTICS

Bioplastics is an umbrella term used for plastics that are biobased, biodegradable or both.

Biobased plastics have a unique advantage over conventional petroleum based plastic in the sense that the composition is made fully, or in part, from plants or other biological matter. Biodegradable plastics can also be partly or fully made from plants or other biological matter BUT can also be fossil based. The advantage with biodegradable plastics is the materials potential to break down in certain environment such as a compost. HOWEVER this compost must in the majority of cases be an INDUSTRIAL Compost.

BIODEGRADABLE PLASTIC

 

Biodegradable is a term we are all familiar with. It is a word we connect with images of natural waste simply disappearing over time or with green waste in a compost heap at the bottom of the garden. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Biodegradable plastic is compostable, meaning that the product has the ability to break down relatively quickly. The catch is that with the current level of technology, this composting must usually occur in an industrial complex capable of putting the plastic through a particular process.

 

In other words biodegradable plastic doesn’t necessarily mean that it could be thrown away with the expectation that it will simply rot and disappear. Home composting of green waste, is very different to the industrial process where specific levels of heat and moisture encourage microbial activity that converts the plastic into organic matter.

 

 Materials that are certified compostable will mostly have been tested in these commercial composting conditions, so it is unlikely that the same chemistry based process can be achieved in a home composting heap. For example, a biodegradable plastic material may break down within weeks in a commercial composting facility, yet the same material may take decades if it were to find its way into nature. This is why we should be wary of this ‘biodegradable’ term when associated with plastics. Furthermore, biodegradable plastics can be made fully, or in part of fossil OR biological matter.

 

BIOBASED PLASTIC

The technology surrounding biobased plastic is different. The composition is made fully, or in part, from plants or other biological matter depending on the properties required for the different products.