Developed by researchers from China's Northeast Forestry University, the bamboo plastic can biodegrade in soil within 50 days and offers a pathway towards sustainable plastic alternatives.
What percentage of single use plastic is used for storing liquids? I would imagine it’s a minority, with things like plastic bags making up the majority.
Plastic bottles are the most common type of container for fluids and make up a huge portion of plastic waste. Drinks, cooking oil and vinegar, cosmetics, personal hygiene products, cleaning products, motor oil, paints, medical products… and that’s just the common consumer stuff. Plastic bags are a big part too but liquid bottles are certainly not a minority.
Plus very acidic liquids like soda may not be bio-active enough to cause this to break down, depending on what the process is.
You also have to be concerned about the outside of the container. Will it be washed as part of the production/handling process? Will sweat and bacteria from human hands cause it to start breaking down? It will be packed in a box for shipping, then unpacked at a store, then picked up and looked at by who knows how many people before being purchased, then it has to stay in one piece until the product it contains is used up. A bottle of toilet cleaner or shampoo or laundry detergent might be handled hundreds of times, and its lifespan from production to final disposal might be a year or more.
Plastic bottles are the most common type of container for fluids and make up a huge portion of plastic waste. Drinks, cooking oil and vinegar, cosmetics, personal hygiene products, cleaning products, motor oil, paints, medical products… and that’s just the common consumer stuff. Plastic bags are a big part too but liquid bottles are certainly not a minority.
You also have to be concerned about the outside of the container. Will it be washed as part of the production/handling process? Will sweat and bacteria from human hands cause it to start breaking down? It will be packed in a box for shipping, then unpacked at a store, then picked up and looked at by who knows how many people before being purchased, then it has to stay in one piece until the product it contains is used up. A bottle of toilet cleaner or shampoo or laundry detergent might be handled hundreds of times, and its lifespan from production to final disposal might be a year or more.