We all know that plastics are made from petroleum. But there has been made a new type of plastics known as Bioplastics which have been made to replace plastics and are made of natural substances such as rice, cellulose, sugarcane, tapioca and corn. Read ahead to know more about it…
Petrochemicals
are the substances that are used in the making of plastics. The advantages of
plastics are:-
i)
Products
made of plastics are cheap.
ii)
Plastics
are very easy to manufacture and so its manufacturing cost is also less.
iii)
Plastics
are corrosion non-conductive and resistant in nature.
iv)
Products
made up of plastics are lighter in weight.
There are
also a very big disadvantages of using plastics and that is they affect our
environment very badly as they are non-biodegradable.
Bioplastics
are an alternative form of plastics made from biological substances rather than
from petrochemicals. Biomass such as corn, cellulose, tapioca, sugarcane, rice
etc. are used to manufacture plastics.
It’s not
necessary for the bioplastics to be biodegradable, that is, they may or may not
be biodegradable. However, the emphasis here is to manufacture plastic objects
from renewable resources instead of non-renewable resources. The methods used
in the manufacture of bioplastics help to reduce the carbon footprint of the products.
So they are more sustainable and environmentally friendlier and more
sustainable than plastics which are produced from fossil fuels.
Bioplastics
are divided into many types depending on the source material. Each one of them has
its own strengths and weaknesses. The bioplastic that is most widely used is none
other than thermoplastic starch – it is used as packaging material. Transparent
biodegradable thermoplastic that is produced from corn is called polylactic
acid (also known as PLA). It is a bit similar in characteristics to PET
plastic. It is one of the materials used to manufacture plastic containers. It
is also used for 3D printing.
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