Polymer-Starch Blend Biodegradable Plastics: An Overview

Abstract

The low degradability behaviour of plastics is an important environmental problem. The end-use of plastic creates waste-disposal problems as these plastics do not readily or naturally degrade and gives severe effect when plastic-waste requires more time to break down. However, as the bio-polymer industries have advanced, biodegradable plastic is being presented as a high promising solution to the environmental problem over the conventional non-biodegradable plastics. As one of the great innovation products in bio-polymer industries, biodegradable plastic can potentially lessen the volume of solid waste and reduce the need for waste dumping sites. Whilst, biodegradable plastic also offers the outstanding properties to resist the brittleness and resistance towards heat. This paper review the potential of biodegradable plastics made from petrochemical-polymers blended with starch, including polyethylene (PE), polycaprolactone (PCL), polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) polypropylene (PP) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).