Biodegradable plastic packaging opens a new chapter in the industry
Biodegradable plastic packaging opens a new chapter in the industry
As the environmental pollution caused by plastic becomes more and more serious, there is a new business opportunity for biodegradable plastic packaging.
Biodegradable plastics are plastics that are degraded by microorganisms such as bacteria, molds (fungi) and algae. Ideal of the use of biodegradable plastics is a kind of excellent performance, microbes can be disposed complete decomposition, was eventually inorganic and become a part of the carbon cycle in the nature of the polymer materials. So non-biodegradable plastic packaging is also environmentally friendly, and its use will do great harm to the environment.
, Europe, America, Japan and other developed countries and regions successively formulated and issued the relevant laws and regulations, through the local disabled, restricted and forced collection and charge pollution tax measures to limit the use of non-biodegradable plastic, such as developing new biodegradable materials, in order to protect the environment, protect the soil, one of France's 2005 i.e. policy requires all can carry the disposable plastic bags must be biodegradable in 2010 years. Now Cameroon is joining this camp, and the non-environmentally friendly packaging material will continue to hit the wall in future development markets. In contrast, environmental friendly packaging materials will have a golden period.
The degradation mechanism of the so-called biodegradable plastics is mainly divided into photodegradable plastic, biodegradable plastic and light/biodegradable plastic. There are two kinds of photodegradation technology. The former is the introduction of a photosensitive group on an olefin aggregation owner chain, which is a photosensitive chemical agent added to the polymer. The study on polyethylene shows that when polyethylene molecules degrade into a low polymer with molecular weight less than 500, they can be absorbed by microbes in soil and have better environmental safety. Dupont, dow chemical, bayer and the university of Toronto in Canada have used the technology to achieve industrial production.
In recent years, in the developed countries to fully biodegradable plastics research and development are the most active, it is reported that in 1998 the global completely biodegradable plastics, the annual output of about 30000 tons, to 2001, the output of the United States, Western Europe, Japan has increased to 70000 tons, has reached 120000 tons in 2004. At present, the degradation products of foreign countries are mainly biodegradable plastics, which will be the industry development direction in the medium and long term.
