Creation of Biodegradable Plastic Products is Both Environmentally Friendly and Helps in Waste Management.

chillibreeze writer — Sangeeta Venkatesh

The use of plastics starts on your breakfast table and continues through the day. Your bread is wrapped in polythene, your milk comes in polythene packets, and all your groceries are packed in different shapes and sizes of polythene packs. At a party, one sees liberal use of disposable cups and cutlery. Indeed, this is the age of disposable or ‘use and throw’ consumerist society, which is generating a huge amount of waste. Consider the following data which lists the time period various materials take to degrade.

Material	Estimated time for degradation
Styrofoam-	Eternity
Glass Bottle-	Unknown
Plastic Bag-	1 million years
Disposable Diapers-	500-600 years
Aluminium Can-	200-500 years
Leather Shoe-	40-50 years
Cotton Rag-	5 months
Paper Bag-	2 months
Banana Peel-	3-4 weeks

(Source: Exnora International)

These numbers present a startling scenario. Statistics show that there will be more landfills than open spaces and already water bodies are choking with human refuse and plastic rubbish. Plastics, in particular, have found a wide variety of uses in human activity from packaging material to consumer products and also in building materials. According to TIFAC, an autonomous organisation under Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, demand for plastics in India reached about 4.3 million tons in the year 2001-02 and would increase to about 8 million tons in the year 2006-07.

Perils of Plastic

While plastics have their utility, it is necessary to remember that most of today’s plastics and synthetic polymers are produced from petrochemicals, which is a non-renewable resource. These are a significant source of environmental pollution and cause harm to life if not disposed properly. Mounds of plastic poly-bags strewn across roadsides are a familiar sight in urban India and to think it would take one million years for it to degrade is a worrisome thought. Moreover, cattle foraging dustbins get these bags into their system and die because of intestinal blockage. In the recent rains (Oct-Nov 2005) which ravaged southern India, cities like Bangalore and Chennai were caught in a deluge due to the sheer choking of storm water drains caused by polythene bags. Moreover, the plastic sheets or bags disallow percolation of water and air into the earth, which causes reduction in the fertility of soil and the depletion of underground water sources.

An alternative to plastics

Man has got used to the convenience of plastics and is unlikely to give it up. Hence it is imperative to look for alternatives, which would substitute them effectively. The obvious choice for biochemical researchers and engineers has been to look at plant sources, which are renewable. Fortunately, research shows that these biopolymer alternatives can be recycled, are not toxic to produce and can be composted if needed. This is because these plastics are biodegradable, molecules that are readily attacked and broken down by microbes. Traditional plastics, on the other hand, have long polymer molecules that are too large and too tightly bonded together to be broken apart and assimilated by decomposer organisms.

There is now a new breed of plastics known as Polylactide Polymers (PLA) being developed by Minneapolis based Cargill Dow Polymers LLC, a joint venture of Cargill and Dow Chemical Co. One of the interesting products they have designed is a compostable bag, to be used for collecting garden or organic waste. According to the company, this bag has improved wet strength, better puncture resistance, visibility of content, ease of handling and closing, as well as compactness which minimises storage requirements, as compared to paper bags.

PLA is a biodegradable thermoplastic derived from lactic acid. It resembles clear polystyrene and its gloss and clarity are aesthetically appealing. The company claims that 30% to 50% less fossil fuel is consumed and less carbon dioxide is emitted as compared to production of other polymers. In addition, PLA products are fully compostable in commercial composting facilities, which means that 100 percent of the carbon of that material will mineralize and be converted to CO2. Biodegradation is a process where natural organic materials go into the ground and tend to decompose progressively to disappear. This phenomenon is very important for the environment, which has to get rid of waste to make room for new life.

The Indian Story

In India, the Mumbai-based company Earthsoul India, has pioneered the manufacture of biopolymer products, and is trying to support methods of sustainable packaging through their network of manufacturers and distributors. Earthsoul India was founded in 2001 and by the year 2005, commercial production had started in Mumbai. The company’s CEO and Founder, Mr. Perses Bilimoria, proudly says that it is the manufacturer of India’s first 100% biodegradable and compostable plastic carrier bag.

The production plant of Earthsoul® is located in Novara, Italy. Earthsoul® products are thermoplastic materials primarily derived from corn, wheat and potato starch, which are processed with the same machines traditionally used to process conventional plastics. The biopolymer used for producing these products has been termed Mater-Bi and employs strict environment regulations put forward by the European norm EN 13432 and the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The manufacturers claim that it is the first completely biodegradable and compostable bio-polymer ever invented and the production process is protected by nearly 50 patents.

“The biopolymeric material is sourced from the research centre in Italy, which uses natural corn starch and our factory in India makes the finished products. We strictly abstain from using GM (genetically modified) corn”, says Bilimoria, who is also on the board on the MoEF (Ministry for Environment and Forests, Govt. of India) for plastics. There is a repertoire of finished products which are now in the market and they include compostable bags, plant seed bags, cling wrap, commercial bin-liners, leaf collection bags, fruit trays, and disposable cutlery. Earthsoul packaging can effectively substitute polystyrene as a packaging material and has good cushioning and resilient properties.

Earthsoul® products’ physical and chemical properties are similar to those of traditional plastics, but it is completely biodegradable in different environments, just like pure cellulose. This substantially controls land and soil pollution as you get fertile humus at the end of decomposition.

According to Bilimoria, the biodegradation takes 20-45 days depending upon the composting conditions. Biodegradability and atoxicity of Earthsoul® have been measured and authenticated by organizations like the Organic Waste System (Belgium), Marxer Institute of Biomedical Research (Ivrea, Italy) and Novamont laboratories.

Some of the eco-friendly traits of Earthsoul:

It is biodegradable, recyclable and compostable.
It can be used like conventional plastic materials.
It can be colored with biodegradable Master Batches and with natural pigments.
It can be heat laminated to paper, cardboard, cotton and other natural fibers.
It can be glued with solvents and water-based adhesives.
It can be sterilized by gamma rays.

Bilimoria has found staunch customers in various national parks and top hotel chains located all over India and also amongst some residential communities in various cities. However, clearly this is not enough, as the plastic menace is much larger than what one company can handle. “There is also the strong plastic lobby to deal with and also the ‘polyester boys’, who market 95 per cent plastic with a tiny amount of degradable additive, generally cobalt, which can cause groundwater pollution, just to get a ‘biodegradable’ label”, explains Bilimoria.

This is where governments must step in and make bioplastics mandatory for disposable plastic items. The costs of bioplastics is about 10-15% more than conventional plastics, because of the high R&D costs attached to it and this is also an area that governments can help by giving environment-friendly companies the subsidies they require. Quite clearly, the bioplastic industry is still in its infancy, and an impetus given to it may change the plastic waste management scenario.

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—About our writer:

Sangeetha is born in Bangalore and then having spent a major part of the early years in the verdant environs of a boarding school in the Nilgiris, Sangeeta is a biotechnologist turned environmentalist /writer. Passionate about music she learns Hindustani music, loves to work out and swim. Otherwise, she is a regular homebody spending time with her two boys, husband and mother-in-law.

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