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Plastics of the Future? The Impact of Biodegradable Polymers on the Environment

˜The œhandbook of environmental chemistry 2020 18 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count.
Leicheng Zhao, Lili Rong, Longfei Zhao, Jintao Yang, Lei Wang, Hongwen Sun

Summary

Biodegradable polymers are increasingly proposed as sustainable alternatives to conventional plastics, but their actual degradation rates and ecological impacts under real environmental conditions vary widely and are often misrepresented. Without rigorous standards for biodegradability claims, some alternatives may simply generate a different form of microplastic pollution rather than solving the underlying problem.

With the increasing reports on the environmental distribution and ecological risks of petrochemical plastics and microplastics, degradable plastics are considered as the optimal alternative to the traditional plastics. Compared with the traditional petrochemical...

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