Will It Compost? - by Tony - The Polymerist
When I started graduate school oil prices were over 100 dollars a barrel, biofuels were hot, and plastic waste was a problem that was being noticed on a global scale. I had just read Cradle to Cradle. I felt I needed to do something of importance or impact with my life, but aligned within my interest in polymer chemistry. Thus, my thesis was focused on trying to make the world a more sustainable place through making new polymers from biomass and understanding how structure influenced properties.
The problem that compostable or biodegradable polymers have tried to solve is one of plastic waste in the environment. If the plastic can biodegrade or compost naturally, then there is no plastic waste...eventually. The idea is one of designing for the worst case scenario, if even all of our containment measures fail to keep plastic waste out of the environment then that plastic will not persist for decades. Maybe a few years instead. It takes years for a dead tree to biodegrade.
I’ve been a big proponent of compostable or biodegradable plastics only being viable if the world has access to industrial composting (not your backyard compost pile). Industrial composting’s advantage is higher heat and humidity than what is possible through backyard composting and this heat and humidity speeds up biodegradation of all biodegradable matter.
