The “Degradable Plastic Bags” You Throw Away Are Secretly Polluting Our Homes

Fully biodegradable plastics: a more reliable “degradable plastic”

Plastics provide convenience and speed in people's daily lives, but they also pollute and harm the planet because they are difficult to degrade. Plastic bottles discarded in the natural environment take up to 450 years to degrade into carbon dioxide, water, and other minerals. During its long degradation process, plastic changes the physical structure of soil and water, affects the growth of plants and animals living in them, and causes microplastics to accumulate in human and animal bodies over time.

The name “degradable plastics” is often misunderstood by ordinary consumers, many of whom regard it as an “environmentally friendly material” that does not require special treatment, and believe that the products can be discarded at will after use. In fact, “biodegradable plastics” was initially proposed as a concept to differentiate them from conventional plastics, and does not imply rapid degradation in any environment. However, it is important to note that improperly used “degradable plastics” can lead to more serious microplastic pollution problems.

Take photo- and thermo-oxygen-degradable plastics as an example, such materials, even if they begin to decompose, are difficult to disappear completely, but instead may break up into smaller microplastics.A 2019 study suggests that the global per capita intake of microplastics through food and drinking water amounts to about 50,000 per year, and the incomplete degradation of photo- and thermo-oxygen-degradable plastics will undoubtedly exacerbate the problem. Therefore, from the present point of view, only biodegradable plastics are relatively reliable “degradable plastics”.

It means that under the action of microorganisms and their enzymes, plastics are gradually utilized by microorganisms and eventually transformed into environmentally harmless substances such as water, carbon dioxide, biomass and inorganic salts, etc. This process is known as biodegradation, and plastics that meet this criterion are usually called biodegradable plastics.

In 2021, China officially released the national standard of “Biodegradable Plastics and Products Degradation Performance and Labeling Requirements” (GB/T 41010-2021), which clearly stipulates the degradation performance of biodegradable plastics and products, the labeling requirements, and other performance of specific products. The introduction of this national standard precisely addresses the many problems in the field of “biodegradable plastics”. Unknown degree of degradation, insufficient production, confusing labeling and time-consuming and laborious testing methods have seriously hindered the progress of plastic pollution control. Among the many plastic products labeled as “degradable”, how to distinguish and identify the real biodegradable products has become an urgent problem for production, sales, use and supervision.

The national standard (GB/T 41010-2021), which has clear requirements for the labeling of biodegradable products: firstly, the material components of the product need to be labeled, stating which polyester or other materials they are composed of; secondly, the conditions of degradation need to be clarified, for example, whether they are degraded in the soil, composting environment, or only under specific special conditions; thirdly, the categories of the national standard that the product complies with are labeled, such as straw category, disposable packaging, shopping bags or agricultural film, etc..

With the national standards, consumers only need to recognize the “degradable plastic” logo when shopping, you can rest assured that the purchase. At present, although the price of “degradable plastics” is higher than that of ordinary plastics, its manufacturing cost is gradually decreasing with technological advances and capacity enhancement. In addition, researchers are also continuing to improve the performance of degradable plastics, committed to solving toughness and other issues, and continue to enhance its mechanical properties and extend its service life. It is believed that with the continuous improvement of technology, biodegradable plastics will play an increasingly important role in the field of environmental protection.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that “The Earth Smiles” CBADP biodegradable masterbatch independently developed by Zhonglian Rongxin (Beijing) Technology Development Co., Ltd, as an innovative achievement in the field of biodegradable plastics, has passed the test of national authoritative double C organization, with a relative degradation rate of more than 90%, which is in full compliance with the national standard of GB/T 41010-2021. 2021 national standard.

Through the dual mechanism of “natural transformation + microbial degradation”, the technology breaks the polymer chain of traditional plastics into small molecules that can be utilized by microorganisms, and eventually transforms them into water, carbon dioxide and biomass, thus avoiding the pollution of microplastics fundamentally. Its outstanding advantage lies in the fact that there is no need to change the traditional plastic production equipment and process, adding 10% can realize full biodegradation, the cost is only 10%-20% higher than ordinary plastics, but 50% lower than other full biodegradable materials on the market, in the field of plastic bags, lunch boxes, mulch film and other areas have been realized in large-scale application, and has become an important practice to promote the governance of “white pollution” program.

As one of the largest production bases of modified raw materials in China, Huawei, we actively respond to the call of the global “plastic ban” policy, and are committed to the research and development, production and sales of fully biodegradable materials. The HW series developed and produced by our company is a kind of green and environmentally friendly thermoplastic resin, which is a fully biodegradable material produced by using PBAT as the base material, modified with starch and calcium carbonate, and extruded through the process of melting and broadcasting layer plasticizing, the material does not contain polyolefin plastics, and it can be degraded under specific conditions such as nature or soil composting and become harmless substances such as carbon dioxide and water. Now we have obtained domestic, EU (DIN CERTCO, TUV), U.S. (BPI), Australia (ABA) and other countries or regions degradation certification. The company takes product quality as life and customer satisfaction as purpose. In order to realize the national “public entrepreneurship, innovation”, reduce carbon emissions, white pollution and other goals, we are willing to work with various enterprises, common development!