The word biobased invokes a feeling of saving the planet by carbon dioxide reduction, a cleaner environment, and a shift from a reliance on petrochemicals. These positives can be true, so why is it taking so long for the world to shift its petrochemical plastic love paradigm?
Biobased plastics come in a huge variety: some that are chemically and physically identical to their petrochemical counterparts and others that are new polymers with properties allowing them to benignly degrade into carbon dioxide and water after their intended use.
The uptake issue is due to the confusion (and current price) over what exactly a biobased plastic is and what that means. Biodegradable, oxo-biodegradable, compostable, industrial compostable, and a host of new terms have been invented to describe the end-of-life outcomes for bioplastics.
Further confusion has been caused by the lack of a harmonised labelling scheme to give confidence about what exactly you are buying. But even with a dependable labelling system, how do we make sure there hasn’t been any counterfeiting? And given the premium you pay for biobased plastics, authentication is critical.To make a circular bioeconomy (and New Zealand is excellently placed to be a world leader), we need to understand the range of biobased plastics and how they can replace the dominant petrochemical plastics in ways that don’t lead to disillusionment.
Stefan Hill is the Research Leader at Scion (www.scionresearch.com) who looks after the Advanced Chemical Characterisation group. He has been a member of the EU programs (KBBPPS & OpenBIO) committees on biobased plastic authentication and global label harmonisation.
Come along and ask Stefan your questions about biobased plastics and where to find out more about what you are buying and how you should treat them once you have finished with them.
Location: Wholly Bagels, 34 Knights Road, Lower Hutt
Related content
Explore our plastic resources, such as
- Plastics and recycling provides a brief history of plastic packaging and how New Zealand deals with its plastic wastes.
- Flight Plastics has closed the recycling loop with the country’s first PET plastic wash and recycling plant.
- Bioplastics and Biodegradability, compostability and bioplastics have explain more about what these terms mean
Activity ideas
- Plastic – reuse, recycle or rubbish is an active game that gets students thinking about the use and reuse of plastic items.
- What happens to our plastic bottles? is a literacy activity suitable for NZC levels 1 and 2.
- DIY plastic recycling plant asks students to design and operate their own recycling plant.