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“Bio”-Plastics – Background
Summary
This paper provides background on bioplastics in the context of the growing global plastic crisis, examining how the oversupply of cheap fossil-fuel-based virgin plastic has driven massive environmental pollution. Researchers discuss the potential of bioplastics as alternatives and the challenges they face in scaling up. The study highlights the complexity of transitioning away from conventional plastics and the need for systemic changes in how plastic materials are produced and managed.
The production and use of plastics have expanded massively over the past decades. The main driver of this development is the strongly supply-driven market for plastics. The fossil raw materials used to produce plastics are readily available at low cost, leading to an oversupply of cheap virgin plastic (Röchling Foundation/Wider Sense 2020). Due to the continuous release of plastics into the environment, the term “plastic crisis” has increasingly gained traction in public discourse in recent years to highlight the threat posed to ecosystems, the climate, biodiversity, and human health by ever-increasing plastic pollution (cf. Ekardt et al. 2019).