So, unless you’ve just woken up and been thrust into 2021 after a long beauty sleep somewhat like Captain America, you should know plastic waste, due to its inability to break down, has been plaguing the environment. Therefore, the smartest scientists, engineers and designers are tasked to solve this problem. A substitute enveloping the good qualities of plastic, but with the ability to degrade in a much shorter period. Another issue on the table is our current unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels, which led to the need to source renewable raw materials for the plastics of the future.
However, there are so many types of plastics, and pseudo-environmental words thrown out by corporations are confusing us further. To make better decisions and support better plastics, we need to know more about plastics in order to make better decisions as consumers or business owners. In general, we can categorise plastics in two ways. The first is if they are degradable, and the second, is the type of raw material used.
Non-degradable vs Biodegradable
Let us focus on the most important issue that has led us to even start our search for better plastics — the ability for plastics to disappear. Traditional petroleum-based plastics are generally non-degradable. To solve this problem, some metal salts or some addictives are added to…