Bioplastic for future: A review then and now
Manali Shah, Sanjukta Rajhans, Himanshu A. Pandya, Archana Mankad
Abstract
Petrochemical based plastics have been widely used as packaging materials, as they have good barrier properties, stiffness, tensile strength & tear strength. Although in great demand plastics have many disadvantages like very low water vapour transmission rate, non- biodegradability etc. which further causes environmental pollution. Keeping in mind about the pollution and harm caused to the nature, newer concepts about the use of bio-plastics came into force. Bio-plastics are produced from the biological sources such as potato, potato peels, corn, sugarcane, wheat, rice, banana peels etc. These plastics are environment friendly & biodegradable, and are safer option than the petroleum-based plastics. These biodegradable plastics break down into carbon dioxide, water & inorganic compounds and degrade completely. The time-line, sources and other important details about the bio-plastics have been presented in this review paper.