Every day we are more aware about pollution and environmental impacts of the waste we generate daily. With the intention of reducing the contamination of these waste, biodegradable products emerged a few years ago. However, the use of biodegradable plastics is not the environmental solution that many believe, because it may help on certain occasions but does not solve the big world garbage problem we have. In this ecology article, we explain how long does biodegradable plastic take to degrade and more details related to these products.
What is the plastic degradation process
The plastic It is a widely used material worldwide, but also one of the ones that takes care to decompose. Plastic is a oil -derived polymer which is molded at high pressures and temperatures. Oil is a material that degrades at very high temperatures (specifically at 286ºC) and that generates many pollutants, in addition to the difficulty of its transport, so its incineration is not viable in most countries.
The degradation of this material is a process that changes its structure and its characteristics, becoming more vulnerable. The Petroleum degradation is between 100 to 1,000 yearsdepending on the size and composition of the container, in which large amounts of contaminants in the middle are issued. Many of these materials are poured indiscriminately and harm thousands of species, actually to the entire planet.
What is biodegradable plastic and what is it for
The biodegradable or bioplastic plastics They are plastics that are manufactured using Organic raw materials They are obtained from renewable sources or daily waste such as bananas, cassava, cellulose, legumes, polysaccharides, soybean oil or potato starch. These materials, being organic waste can be degraded by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. The benefit obtained from this more biological decomposition is that products such as carbon dioxide (at the same time beneficial and harmful to the environment are generated), water and, in addition, other biomaterials, serving as Organic fertilizer for the soil. In addition, plastic degradation times are also reduced. It is also important to say that, currently, many plastics sold as biodegradable are still not necessarily composed of organic materials, but from oil as conventional ones.
It should also be known in what cases it is really useful and some examples of What is the biodegradable plastic for:
- Bioplastic wrappers: These wrappers can break down before conventional ones.
- Agriculture: This plastic can be mixed on Earth with mulch and seed layers (it also has inconveniences, as we will see).
- Medicine: This plastic can be useful for the manufacture of absorbable sutures, microdispositive or capsules that are degraded inside the body.
How long to degrade biodegradable and normal plastic
The truth is that a plastic bag, even if it is biodegradable, also takes time to degrade. Against the time the conventional ones, the biodegradables take (as we said, not all who claim to be) They begin to degrade around 18 months (that’s why they have a manufacturing date) up to a period between 1 year and a half to 3 yearswhich is really not a short time.
Even this degradation process is not easy, since they need special conditions, specifically the conditions must be concrete in terms of microorganisms, temperature and humidity and when they are buried they can emit greenhouse gases and be more harmful to the means than a conventional plastic.
An example, diapers made with conventional plastic can take to degrade between 300 and 400 years, since they have been manufactured with oil derived materials, while diapers made of biodegradable materials are better, but it takes between 3 and 6 years, which is also time to contaminate the medium, although it must also be taken into account that these materials do feed more organisms than of conventional plastics.
Discover more about how long the waste takes to degrade in this other ecology article.
Conclusion
The biodegradability of plastic is something very dependent on the conditions of the environment (the human body acts differently than the earth in that sense). So it makes no sense to make a product like biodegradable plastic bags, easier to break down, when that will not really solve the problem of garbage that is generated worldwide. What should be done is complement it with solutions to reduce world garbage.
These biodegradable plastics are useful and are also very interesting to continue investigating, but can only be used when they are a specific benefit. To solve the problem of garbage and Really help the environmentthe best solution is to save energy and get the recycling, reuse of plastic materials or Reuse fabric and cardboard or paper bags.
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