Bio‐ and oxo‐degradable plastics: Insights on facts and challenges

Bio‐ and oxo‐degradable plastics: Insights on facts and challenges

The global accumulation of single‐use plastic bags made from nonbiodegradable plastics is the most concerning environmental issue nowadays. The utilization of biodegradable materials is a choice to reduce the environmental impact resulting from the use of plastic products. The utilization of renewab...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polymers for advanced technologies Vol. 32; no. 5; pp. 1981 - 1996
Main Authors: Abdelmoez, Wael, Dahab, Islam, Ragab, Esraa M., Abdelsalam, Omnia A., Mustafa, Ahmad
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01-05-2021
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects:
Additives
Biodegradability
Biodegradable materials
Biodegradation
Biopolymers
Comparative studies
Environmental impact
environmental pollution
Materials selection
Microorganisms
Natural resources
Oxidizing agents
oxo‐biodegradable
Plastics
polyolefins
poly‐lactic acid
Renewable resources
starch
Utilization
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Summary:The global accumulation of single‐use plastic bags made from nonbiodegradable plastics is the most concerning environmental issue nowadays. The utilization of biodegradable materials is a choice to reduce the environmental impact resulting from the use of plastic products. The utilization of renewable resources to produce fully biodegradable plastics is among the technologies used to overcome petroleum plastic's negative impact. On the other hand, the utilization of oxo‐biodegradable plastics where prodegradant additives are incorporated in conventional plastics to promote their degradation under certain conditions has recently received much attention. This review discusses the types and challenges that face the implementation of biodegradable plastics technology that uses renewable resources. This review also covers the debate addressed in the literature about the biodegradability fate of oxo‐biodegradable plastic in the air, compost, soil, landfill, and marine. A comparative study included the potential published literature in the last 10 years was performed. Based on the discussed evidence in this review, it can be concluded that all literature agrees that the addition of pro‐oxidant/prodegradants can accelerate the degradation of oxo‐plastics to small fragments. However, the complete biodegradation of oxo‐plastics by microorganisms remains in doubt. On the other hand, biopolymers produced from natural resources seem to be the future direction for plastics manufacturing especially single‐use plastic bags.
ISSN:1042-7147
1099-1581
DOI:10.1002/pat.5253