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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Redesigning Carbon–Carbon Backbone Polymers for Biodegradability–Compostability at the End-of-Life Stage
ClearBiobased Compostable Plastics End-of-Life: Environmental Assessment Including Carbon Footprint and Microplastic Impacts
This paper argues that traditional environmental assessments for plastics overlook two important issues: accurate carbon footprint comparisons and microplastic persistence. The authors show that compostable bio-based plastics can be fully broken down through industrial composting, offering a real solution to microplastic accumulation. They call for microplastic persistence to be included as a standard factor when comparing the environmental impact of different plastic materials.
The future of plastic
Researchers examine whether biodegradable polymers can solve plastic's environmental crisis, noting that while plastic is enormously useful, society's heavy reliance on it has created a global pollution problem that biodegradable alternatives alone are unlikely to fully resolve.
Plastic Pollution. The Role of (Bio)Degradable Plastics and Other Solutions
This review examines the scope of plastic pollution including micro and nanoplastics (MNPs), their environmental and health impacts, and potential mitigation strategies including biodegradable plastics and design-for-end-of-life approaches. The authors evaluate the conditions under which biodegradable plastics can and cannot serve as viable solutions to plastic pollution.
Designing biodegradable alternatives to commodity polymers
This review examined the challenges and strategies for designing biodegradable alternatives to commodity polymers, acknowledging that while replacement is necessary, sustainable alternatives must match the performance and economics of conventional plastics.
End of Life of Biodegradable Plastics: Composting versus Re/Upcycling
This review compared composting versus chemical re/upcycling as end-of-life strategies for biodegradable plastics, concluding that the best approach depends on the specific material and that careful system-level evaluation is needed to avoid simply trading one pollution problem for another.
Discussion about suitable applications for biodegradable plastics regarding their sources, uses and end of life
Researchers critically evaluated the scientific basis for biodegradable plastics as a solution to plastic pollution, concluding that no plastic biodegrades universally across all ecosystems, that treating the environment as a waste treatment system is unacceptable, and that compostable plastics require dedicated collection infrastructure to deliver on their environmental promise.
Design of new biopolymers for biomedicine and food-packaging
Researchers review new biopolymer designs intended for biomedical and food packaging applications, aiming to replace fossil-fuel-based plastics with biodegradable alternatives from renewable sources. Widespread adoption of such materials could significantly reduce long-term microplastic pollution.
Biodegradable Polymers: The Future of Sustainable Plastic Alternatives
This review examines biodegradable polymers as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, evaluating their potential to reduce microplastic pollution and ecological degradation. The authors assess the performance, environmental fate, and scalability of current biodegradable materials, identifying key challenges for widespread adoption across packaging and consumer product applications.
Bio-based plastics in a circular economy: A review of recovery pathways and implications for product design
Researchers reviewed how bio-based plastics — made from renewable plant sources — can be recovered and recycled at end-of-life, finding that the feasibility of eight different recovery methods depends heavily not just on plastic chemistry but on how products are designed, and offering guidance for designers to improve recyclability.
Are bioplastics the solution to the plastic pollution problem?
This review examines whether bioplastics can meaningfully reduce plastic pollution, concluding that while bioplastics offer some advantages, they are not a straightforward solution because many require industrial composting conditions and their environmental benefits depend heavily on end-of-life management.
Biodegradable Polymers: Present Opportunities and Challenges in Providing a Microplastic‐Free Environment
This viewpoint examines whether biodegradable polymers can solve the microplastic pollution problem, concluding that while they show promise, their biodegradability in real-world natural environments (versus industrial composting conditions) is often uncertain. The authors call for intensive research into truly environmentally degradable materials and smart degradation mechanisms.
Integrated and Consolidated Review of Plastic Waste Management and Bio-Based Biodegradable Plastics: Challenges and Opportunities
This review integrates and consolidates the global status of plastic waste management alongside the development of bio-based and biodegradable polymer alternatives. With cumulative plastic production reaching 8.3 billion tonnes by 2015 and 79% of plastic waste ending up in landfills or the environment, the review identifies urgent need for both improved waste management and scalable bioplastic alternatives.
Biodegradable plastics in the marine environment: a potential source of risk?
This review examines whether biodegradable plastics offer a genuine solution to marine plastic pollution, finding that their environmental behavior depends heavily on specific conditions and that they may still pose risks in marine environments where decomposition is slow.
Valorizing and Remediating Synthetic Polymers with Tenacious Backbones
This dissertation explored chemical and biological strategies to break down or recycle synthetic polymers with chemically resistant backbones such as polyethylene and polypropylene, which are the most common types of plastic litter. Developing degradation pathways for durable plastics is essential for reducing the long-term accumulation of microplastics in the environment.
Evolution of the proportion of initial Carbon retrieved in Microplastics as a function of post-aging carbonyl index.
This study tracks the evolution of the proportion of initial carbon retrieved in microplastics as a function of the post-aging carbonyl index, providing a quantitative measure of carbon loss during environmental degradation of plastic particles. The findings contribute to understanding how polymer aging affects carbon accounting in microplastic degradation studies.
Challenges and Strategies for Degradation of Microplastics in Environment
This review examines the challenges of degrading microplastics in environmental settings, discussing their hydrophobic nature, persistent covalent bonds, and large specific surface area that attracts co-contaminants, and surveys physical, chemical, and biological degradation strategies alongside remaining technical hurdles to practical implementation.
Developing Bioderived CO2-Responsive Polymers as Alternatives to Petroleum-derived Polymers
Researchers examined the development of bioderived, CO2-responsive polymers as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-derived plastics, using life cycle assessment principles and green chemistry frameworks to guide material design. The work addresses the environmental harms of petroleum-based plastic production and low recycling rates, proposing bio-based responsive polymers as a route toward materials with reduced environmental impact across their full lifecycle.
Circular economy for plastic waste management
This overview chapter discusses circular economy approaches for plastic waste management, covering the history of plastic production and why strong carbon-carbon bonds make plastics so resistant to biological degradation. The chapter argues for redesigning plastic use and recycling systems to prevent plastic from fragmenting into persistent microplastics.
Biodegradation of Wasted Bioplastics
This paper provides a broad overview of bioplastics — materials made from renewable biological sources — discussing their potential as a partial solution to global plastic pollution and the complexity of their biodegradability. While microplastic accumulation in oceans is mentioned as context for the urgency of the problem, the paper's focus is on bioplastic production and biodegradation rather than microplastic health or environmental impacts.
Plastic Pollution and Potential Solutions
This review provides a broad overview of plastic pollution, covering the full lifecycle from manufacturing through disposal and environmental degradation. Researchers note that of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic ever produced, roughly 79% has ended up in landfills or the natural environment, where it breaks down into micro- and nanoplastics that persist for centuries. The study discusses potential solutions including improved recycling, biodegradable alternatives, and policy interventions to reduce plastic waste.
Degradation and Recycling of Polymer Materials
This review synthesizes research on the degradation and recycling of polymer materials, covering microplastic formation, recycling strategies, and plastic degradation mechanisms as responses to the significant environmental damage caused by discarded plastics in ocean and other ecosystems.
Potential environmental impacts of bioplastic degradation in natural marine environments: A comprehensive review
This review examines the environmental impacts of biodegradable plastics degrading in marine environments, finding that their microscale breakdown raises significant concerns about contributing to microplastic pollution rather than eliminating it. The authors conclude that biodegradable plastics require reevaluation as petroleum-based plastic substitutes given the incomplete understanding of their behavior at the microscale in marine ecosystems.
Toward Microbial Recycling and Upcycling of Plastics: Prospects and Challenges
This review examines the prospects and challenges of using microorganisms to recycle and upcycle plastic waste, assessing the current state of microbial degradation research across major polymer types. The authors identify metabolic engineering and synthetic biology as key tools needed to make biological plastic recycling economically viable at scale.
Enhancing environmmental biodegradation of polyesters
Researchers investigated strategies to enhance the environmental biodegradation of polyester-based packaging polymers, proposing two pathways: a smart material design concept that incorporates degradation-facilitating additives, and an enzymatic approach using engineered polyesterases. The work addresses the practical challenge that biodegradable polyesters degrade too slowly under real environmental conditions, generating persistent microplastic fragments, and aims to close this gap between certified biodegradability and actual environmental breakdown.