Optimizing bioplastics translation

Abstract

Plastics are integral to the modern economy. They are lightweight, strong, flexible and are used in all sorts of products in almost every industry. However, their widespread usage and poor degradability/disposability have also made them a threat to the ecosystem and human society. A promising solution is to use bioplastics, which are derived from renewable carbon sources and/or are degradable at their end-of-life stage. However, bioplastics currently account for only a small fraction of the total global market share of plastics (about 1%). Among the major barriers to their industrial translation are a lengthy and expensive testing and certification process, greenwashing and public misconceptions. In this Review, we address these obstacles and propose an accessible pre-screening framework for testing a large number of bioplastic products before they undergo standardized testing. We further describe the challenges associated with the life cycles of bioplastics and discuss how to address them, with reference to a case study from South Korea.