Plastic from Plants

Polymers protect us from the elements, increase the fuel efficiency of cars, protect food from pathogens, help cure disease, and enable renewable-energy technologies. To promote, foster, and enable a sustainable society, we need polymers. Yet polymers can also create serious environmental challenges. Nearly all plastic packaging produced—more than 80 billion kg annually—originates from fossil resources and is disposed of after a relatively short period of use.
Biodegradable plastics are those that can be completely degraded in landfills, composters or sewage treatment plants by the action of naturally occurring micro-organisms. Truly biodegradable plastics leave no toxic, visible or distinguishable residues following degradation. Their biodegradability contrasts sharply with most petroleum-based plastics, which are essentially indestructible in a biological context. Because of the ubiquitous use of petroleum-based plastics, their persistence in the environment and their fossil-fuel derivation, alternatives to these traditional plastics are being explored. Issues surrounding waste management of traditional and biodegradable polymers are discussed in the context of reducing environmental pressures and carbon footprints.  Plants naturally produce numerous polymers, including rubber, starch, cellulose and storage proteins, all of which have been exploited for biodegradable plastic production. Bacterial bioreactors fed with renewable resources from plants--so-called 'white biotechnology'--have also been successful in producing biodegradable polymers.