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A Review: Investigation of Bioplastics



Author(s)

Ezgi Bezirhan Arikan and Havva Duygu Ozsoy

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DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2015.02.007

Because of increasing environmental concerns/legislative pressure for plastics waste and rapid increases in the cost of petroleum, the development of “environmental friendly” materials has attracted extensive interest. Recently, bioplastics are one of the most innovative environmental friendly materials developed. Therefore, this paper will look at aspects of the bioplastics from the perspective of sustainability, advantages/disadvantages and standards. The global bioplastics market is thought to be growing at a rate of 20%~25% per year. They have some advantages such as lower carbon footprint, independence, energy efficiency, and eco-safety. However, they have some disadvantages such as high cost, recycling, reducing raw materials, misused of terms and lack of legislation. For the sustainability, recycling systems and production technology may be developed for bioplastics and by-product should be used for their production. Also, there is much standardization about them. It is important to have comparable international standard methods. Therefore, there is an urgent need to standardize all details. A new guide and standard for just bioplastics should be developed for production, usage and bioplastic waste management for every country in the world.

 Advantages of bioplastics, bioplastics, disadvantages of bioplastics, standards, sustainability