Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bio-Plastics

Plastic's end of life cycle involves being discarded, either recycled for reuse or dumped into a landfill or the ocean. Recycling's popularity has significantly grown since the 1970's, as well as the overall number of plastic products being produced. In addition, the amount of plastic products being created as significantly increased over the past 60 years. Due to the endurance of polymers, plastic is filling up landfills faster than it should and invading our natural habitats. Recycling is one of the most critical things we can do for our environment. It can cut down on the amount of plastic in landfills as well. Recycling plastic reduces the need to create more plastic, which also cuts down on oil use and pollutants being released into the air. In the time that recycling has become more popular, technology has advanced to create more job

Plastics are also called polymers, are produced by natural products like oil, natural gas or coal.

The two pie charts compare the respective categories of US household garbage in 1990 and 2005. Overall, most of household garbage was the paper in both years while the percentage of plastics in 2005 rose by 10% compared to in 1990.

Through research about composite and bio-composite, there are many advantage and disadvantages in aircraft construction. Definition for composite, a material that are made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties when combined, produce a material with characteristic different from the individual components. The individual components remain separate and distinct within the finished structure. In aircraft, the first composite aircraft was in 1916, era of World War 1, when British launched a Bristol Scout from Felixstowe. Between the World War, American experiments with airship composites led to the construction of two aircraft carriers, while the British Short Mayo seaplane composite demonstrated successful transatlantic mail delivery. During the Second World War, some composites saw operational use including the Mistel, the larger unmanned component of a composite aircraft configuration developed in Germany at the end of World War 2. Experiments continued into the jet age, with large aircraft carrying fully capable parasite fighters or reconnaissance drones.

People would say that plastic in landfills would just stay there and if we keep on using plastic the waste problem would just worsen. I think that the problem here is why do people put plastics in landfills mixed with biodegradable materials. There are ways to properly recycle plastic. This comes to my third argument for why plastic beats paper. It is better because we could change its physical shape to things we really need. Richard Stein, from the University of Massachusetts, stated that plastics could be melted and formed into different structures such as propellers for wind turbines, food containers and many more [3]. Imagine being able to reuse plastic as long as the quality of it can still be recyclable, but if it isn’t anymore, Richard Stein also suggested that plastic could be converted to energy by burning it since it is made of petroleum [3].

Bio-based polymers are materials which are produced from renewable resources. The terms bio-based and biodegradable will be used repeatedly in the literature, however there is a key difference between the two types of materials. Biodegradable are defined as materials whose physical and chemical attributes will undergo degradation and completely deteriorate when exposed to microorganisms, aerobic processes, anaerobic processes, or both process simultaneously. On the other hand, Bio-based polymers can be biodegradable like polylactic acid or not degradable like biopolyhethylene. Comparably many bio-based polymers are biodegradable, yet not all biodegradable polymers are bio-based.

Firstly, according to an article “Plastics” by David e Newton states that 16 percent of all municipal solid waste in United States consist of plastics. In another article “Plastic Pollution” by Kiener R. stated that only 5% of those 16% plastics are recyclable. In accordance to his report most of the

Post World War II plastic started to become a way of life. Early plastics were made from cellulose and also known as "green plastics" but most of today's plastics are made of hydrocarbon molecules that is used from the refining of oil and natural gas. Depending on how the plastic is made will decided wheter it's used for something like sandwich wrap or making some sort of plastic handle on a tool.

By going to a website called, “postconsumer.com,” I found out that, “ Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade- breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways. They then enter the food web when animals accidentally ingest them,”( admin, para.8 ). In case you didn't know, the meaning of biodegrade is to decay and to become absorbed by the environment, while photodegrade is to be decomposed by the action of light, especially sun light. Plastic bags are very common in grocery stores. Sure they help us carry items, but plastic bags can do a lot of harm to the environment and to living animals, such as creating land fills and endangering six of seven species of sea turtles. Where I'm getting at is that

Song JH, (2009) states that “Many different materials are used for packaging including metals, glass, wood, paper or pulp, plastics or combinations of more than one material as composites” (p 364). What this means is that most of the packaging materials we use for packaging contain products that are very hard to de compose and end up in landfills. In order to achieve bio degradable packaging we should consider bioplastic polymers which “are generally still much higher than that of their traditional plastic counterparts” (364). Bioplastic polymers cost much more than regular polymers we use but, if we can help our planet and company become more environmental friendly, we should take that step and use bioplastic polymers for our

Biodegradable plastic is plastic that is capable to decompose through the action of living organisms. It is originally from renewable resources and made from natural materials such as corn starch. Biodegradable plastic is also an alternative source of plastic. To produce it, ‘First, lactic acid is fed into a reactor and converted into a type of pre-plastic under high temperature and in a vacuum’, Professor Bert Sels explains(2015). These are only the some of the

Clariant’s new product launch of bio compatible materials has changed the game within the plastics industries with more and more importance weighing heavily on keeping the Earth green. Fossil resources are becoming scarcer and prices have been rising, around 95% of all industrially manufactured goods are dependent on the availability of oil. Clariant is ahead of the game with developing sustainable solutions based off from renewable resources. These new Bio compatible sources hopefully will reduce dependence on oil and at the same time help the environment (Business News, 2016).

With the combination of polymers that don’t biodegrade and mass overproduction, companies are harming the environment in severe ways. Plastic, a material seen everywhere, is a polymer made from oil. It is mass produced to make everything from shampoo bottles to automobiles and does not biodegrade. When it is eventually thrown out, the waste usually finds it way into the ocean, where it is either buried under sediment or eaten by marine life (Weisman 287-295). Creating a material that will ultimately kill marine life will undoubtedly wreak havoc on the

Investigations into developing a more sustainable and eco-friendly aspect of every day life are becoming a major priority. Without such investigations or developments in not only the food packaging sectors, but in many other major industries, this planet along with its inhabitants will surely succumb to the human lust of consumerism and ultimately the waste that such hunger produces. The implantation of ecofriendly “green” packaging options would see a sharp decline in the amount of waste that is produced each year and give the ability to recycle and to produce new items from previously used packaging. In this report the team discuss the concept of biodegradable plastics and their future implementation as “green” food packaging alternatives to the current form of non eco-friendly plastics that are in existing use. Biodegradability refers to a composites ability to be degraded by bacteria or other living organisms, plastics such as these can also be susceptible to water and ultraviolet rays as sources of decomposition with this aspect being discussed within the chapters of this report. As apart of this report, team members assess the discovery, life cycle as well as the current or future applications of three different types of bio-plastic. Contained within is discussion on Poly-Lactic Acid, Novamont’s thermoplastic starch-based polymer and …

The project focuses on a company ECOVATIVE that is producing bio-friendly plastics those help to fulfill the human demand as well as save the environment. The core focus is to develop a view to save the environment by using bio-friendly products and promote it on worldwide market as well as satisfy consumer demand with low cost. The project also focuses on the 4p (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) positioning of bio-plastic.