Do you know about several common questions concerning degradable plastic bags?

As plastic-induced white pollution becomes increasingly severe, environmental protection is gaining more public attention. Looking at the current overall trend in the plastics industry: traditional plastic bags can no longer meet the current requirements for energy saving and environmental protection, and biodegradable plastic bags are replacing traditional plastics as a new development direction. At the same time, also due to the strictest "Plastic Ban" (lit. "Plastic Restriction Order"), biodegradable plastic bags officially entered people's view. In fact, the eco-friendly bags everyone is concerned about now are equivalent to biodegradable plastic bags. So what exactly do we mean by biodegradable plastic bags? Shunxingyuan Packaging, a professional flexible packaging manufacturer, will explain it to you.

Based on their degradation mechanism, degradable plastic bags can be specifically divided into three categories: photodegradable plastic bags, biodegradable plastic bags, and water-degradable plastic bags.
• Photodegradable Plastic Bags ： Photosensitizers are mixed into the plastic bag material, and under sunlight exposure, the plastic bag gradually decomposes. However, its drawback is that the degradation time is influenced by sunlight and climatic conditions, making it uncontrollable.
• Biodegradable Plastic Bags ： Refers to plastics that can be decomposed into low-molecular-weight compounds under certain conditions by microorganisms present in nature, such as bacteria, molds, and algae. These plastics are convenient for storage and transportation, and have a wide range of applications.
• Water-degradable Plastic Bags ： A type of plastic bag that can dissolve in water due to the addition of water-absorbing substances.

Having read this far, we can now raise some common questions:

Question 1: Is degradable plastic bag the same as biodegradable plastic bag ?

Question 2: Can biodegradable plastics Bags degrade and disappear on their own in soil or air?

Question 3: Are biodegradable plastics Bags always derived from plants?

Question 4: Are all plastics derived from biomass resources Bags biodegradable plastics? Bags ?

01: Degradable plastic bag the same as biodegradable plastic bag ?

No, they have a superset-subset relationship. Biodegradable plastic bag is a subset of plastic bag degradable.

Degradable plastics include many types:

• From the perspective of raw materials, degradable plastics can come from either petrochemical raw materials (fossil-based plastics) or biomass materials (bio-based plastics).

• From the perspective of degradation mechanisms, degradable plastics include biodegradation, photodegradation, oxidative degradation, etc.

• From the perspective of degradation effect, they can be divided into "complete" degradation and "partial" degradation.

The degradation of plastic refers to the process where its structure undergoes significant changes and its properties are lost under the influence of environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, moisture, oxygen, etc.). Biodegradable plastic bags are one type of degradable plastic bags.

02: Biodegradable Plastics Bags degrade and disappear on their own in soil or air?

In fact, biodegradable plastics Bags do not necessarily degrade on their own in nature.

Biodegradable plastic bags require specific conditions of temperature, humidity, and microbial activity to achieve complete degradation, producing environmentally harmless substances such as carbon dioxide and water.

For example, the degradation of photodegradable plastics heavily relies on the presence of a light source; when buried in soil without light, degradation will hardly occur. Biodegradable plastics, on the other hand, require specific industrial composting conditions to degrade, for instance, taking PLA as an example, its biodegradation requires meeting two fundamental conditions: 50%-60% humidity and a temperature of 50-70 degrees Celsius. Under these conditions, microorganisms can gradually decompose PLA over several months or even longer.

Therefore, using degradable plastics does not mean consumers can discard them arbitrarily. These products should be subjected to unified waste sorting and recycling, just like traditional plastic products, and be recycled and reused through appropriate disposal methods (including physical recycling, chemical recycling, and biological recycling such as composting).

03: Biodegradable Plastics Bags always derived from plants?

The raw materials for biodegradable plastic bags have two sources:

One is bio-based, such as those directly derived from biomass, like starches from potatoes and corn, and mixtures of plant fibers, etc.;

A portion also comes from petrochemical-based materials, such as petroleum, natural gas, etc.

04: Are all plastics whose raw materials come from biomass resources biodegradable plastics?

Not all plastics derived from biomass are degradable. Some plastics are derived from biomass but are not degradable; only plastics that are both derived from biomass and biodegradable are considered biodegradable plastics.

Bio-based plastics focus on the raw materials for manufacturing plastics coming from renewable resources like biomass.

Biodegradable plastics, on the other hand, approach from the perspective of environmental pollution control, considering whether they can completely degrade and be harmless to the environment after degradation.

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