How many misunderstandings have you got about biodegradable plastics?

How much do you know about biodegradable materials?

I don't know if you stepped on these "thunder" of biodegradable materials.

Is biodegradable plastic really equal to 100% degradation? figure | Huicong Plastics

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Misunderstanding 1: biodegradable plastics can be degraded and disappear in soil and air.

Biodegradable plastics need to be completely degraded under the combined action of specific temperature, humidity and microorganisms to produce environmentally harmless substances such as carbon dioxide and water. If there is no classified recycling treatment, the random entry of biodegradable plastics into the environment will cause environmental harm, which is not much different from that of ordinary disposable plastics.

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Misconception 2: biodegradable plastics can be degraded and disappear in the home.

Compostable plastic is one of the biodegradable plastics. Ordinary home composting can provide a certain amount of fungi and bacteria, but the temperature can not reach the condition of industrial composting, which will greatly reduce the degradability of biodegradable plastics. Therefore, only some of the compostable plastics certified by home composting can be composted and degraded at home.

At present, there is no standard and certification for home composting in China. Some of the plastic products on the market marked as home composting have passed the OK Compost HOME certification of T ü V AUSTRIA, an Austrian certification body, and obtained the corresponding certification mark. The product can be degraded in as long as 12 months at the temperature of 20-30 ℃. OK Compost HOME certification is based on AS 5810 of Australia, NF T 51800 of France and EN 17427 of the European Union.

The certification mark of home composting provided by Austrian certification body T ü V AUSTRIA

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Myth 3: in garbage sorting, biodegradable plastics should be thrown into kitchen waste buckets.

Ideally, biodegradable plastics should be classified and recycled separately, and then concentrated on industrial composting to ensure that biodegradable plastics can be degraded smoothly and completely and minimize the harm to the environment. There is no clear stipulation as to whether biodegradable plastics should be set up as separate recycling bins or thrown into food waste bins and disposed of together with food waste.

Biodegradable plastics, which category bucket should be thrown? Sohu News

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Misunderstanding 4: the raw materials of biodegradable plastics come from plants.

There are two sources of biodegradable plastics, one is bio-based, such as directly derived from biomass, such as potato, corn starch mixture, but also some are from fossil-based materials. At present, about 24% of the compostable plastics on the market are fossil-based plastics.

(data from EU publication A Circular Economy for Plastics-Insights from research and innovation to inform policy and funding decisions 2019)

The "life" of biodegradable plastics seems to be a cycle.

How to classify this plastic into compost in real life is still a challenge.

Picture | Xinhuanet

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Misunderstanding 5: biodegradable plastics are suitable for all kinds of disposable products

At present, the final disposal of biodegradable plastics needs to be degraded in a special composting environment, so it is more suitable for food contact and agricultural scenes, such as food packaging, agricultural film, disposable tableware, etc., in order to facilitate recycling and composting treatment, and reduce the possibility of affecting the quality of composting.

Figure | SSYER

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Myth 6: biodegradable plastics are healthier and safer than ordinary plastics.

Both biodegradable plastics and ordinary plastics contain additional chemicals such as plasticizers. In addition, biodegradable plastics have some safety risks that ordinary plastics do not have, such as the use of polymer hot melt adhesive in the production of plant fiber tableware, chemical residues and plant pesticide content control are worthy of our attention.

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Myth 7: biodegradable plastics are easy to tell from ordinary plastics

For the time being, there is no mandatory requirement for the unified identification of biodegradable plastics in the country, and the current labeling is more difficult to identify in appearance, so it should be more carefully identified when choosing and purchasing products.