02/08/2022
♻️ PHA AND PLA PLASTICS ♻️
👉🏻 PHAs — or its sexier scientific name, polyhydroxyalkanoate — are bio-based plastics. They’ve been popularly adopted as a biodegradable option for consumer products and food and beverage companies.
👉🏻 PLA, polylactic acid, is a polymer made from bio-based materials like cornstarch or sugarcane. It’s commonly used in anything from bottles to medical devices to 3D printing.
👉🏻 While they’re improvements to petroleum-based plastic, studies have found PHA and PLA bioplastics are not the heroes they’re cracked up to be.
👉🏻 Bioplastics also often entail a carbon-intensive manufacturing process, cannot be effectively recycled among conventional plastics, and require significant land development for production.
👉🏻 To effectively biodegrade, most bioplastics need high-temperature, industrial composting facilities. Consequently, many bioplastics are often piled up in landfills. If deprived of oxygen, bioplastics may release methane — a greenhouse gas at least 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
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