Searching for biodegradable polymers
Plastics that break down in the environment could be the answer to our pollution worries, Aisling Irwin finds – but only if they are useful in the first place
Chemists have been searching for materials that can do the same jobs as conventional plastics, but fade harmlessly into the environment when their work is done. Spurred by images of plastic-choked animals and heavily polluted rivers and beaches, they have produced a profusion of new substances – yarn from seaweed, felt from milk, wood transformed into fleece linings and microbes adapted to turn waste streams into biopolymers.
But can biodegradable plastic ever command more than its 0.3% sliver of the plastic market, which stands at 300 million tonnes produced each year? Could biodegradable plastics make the dream of clean hedgerows and healthy sea turtle stomachs a reality? The answer is complex, confusing and contentious.