Post #51903 - 15/07/2022 04:13:41

Trend of disposable plastic industry

 

59% of white pollution comes from packaging and agricultural plastic products. The disposable and difficult-to-recycle plastics of this type are not suitable for plastic recycling. Only biodegradable plastics can fundamentally solve the problem of white pollution. Degradable plastics and recycled plastics are two potential options for solving the white pollution problem. Degradable plastics refer to plastics whose product properties can meet the requirements of use performance, remain unchanged during the storage period, and can be degraded into environmentally sound substances under natural environmental conditions after use.
Degradable plastics can be classified by different degradation methods or different raw materials. According to the classification of degradation methods, degradable plastics can be divided into four categories: biodegradable plastics, light-degradable plastics, light and biodegradable plastics, and water-degradable plastics. At present, the technologies for photodegradable plastics and photo- and biodegradable plastics are still immature, and there are few products on the market. Therefore, the degradable plastics mentioned hereafter are all biodegradable plastics and water-degradable plastics. According to the classification of raw materials, degradable plastics can be divided into bio-based degradable plastics and petroleum-based degradable plastics. Biodegradable plastics are plastics produced with biomass as raw materials, which can reduce the consumption of traditional energy sources such as petroleum, mainly including PLA (polylactic acid), PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate), PGA (polyglutamic acid), etc. . Petroleum-based degradable plastics are plastics produced from fossil energy sources. They mainly include PBS (polybutylene succinate), PBAT (polybutylene adipate/terephthalate), and PCL (polybutylene terephthalate). Ester) and so on.
 
 

Degradable plastics have their advantages in performance, practicability, degradability, and safety. In terms of performance, biodegradable plastics can reach or exceed the performance of traditional plastics in certain specific areas; in terms of practicality, biodegradable plastics have similar application performance and hygienic performance to similar traditional plastics; in terms of degradability, biodegradable plastics After use, it can be degraded quickly in the natural environment (specific microorganisms, temperature, humidity), and become fragments or non-toxic gases that are easily used by the environment, reducing the impact on the environment; in terms of safety, degradable plastics are degraded The substances produced or remaining in the process are harmless to the environment and will not affect the survival of humans and other organisms. At present, the biggest obstacle to replacing traditional plastics is also the disadvantage of biodegradable plastics in that their production costs are higher than similar traditional plastics or recycled plastics. Therefore, in applications such as packaging, agricultural film, etc., which have a short use time, are difficult to recycle and separate, have low performance requirements, and have high impurity content requirements, degradable plastics have an alternative advantage.