Judul: Model Kantong Plastik Belanja Ramah Lingkungan di Indonesia
(Studi Kasus: Kantong Plastik Biodegradable)
Abstrak: Plastic shopping bags have become a necessity because of its practical useful, as a container to carry grocery items and finally were used as trash carriers prior to final disposing into landfill. The use of plastic shopping bags in Indonesia increasingly exponential growth from year to year, making environmental problems such as flooding and landslides. The government has issued Law No. 18/2008 to address this issue. In line with the regulations for using of environmentally friendly plastic bags, some retailers and shopping centers has initiated the program by providing environmental friendly plastic shopping bags such as biodegradable and oxodegradable types. However, the component ingredients are added in processing of environmentally friendly plastic bag, so it makes price higher than the conventional one, which in turn is a burden on consumers. From FGD result, the issue of price is the problem in the using of environmentally friendly plastic shopping bags. The results of some AHP questionnaires which are filled by 36 respondents, and after processing the data with expert choice software, the highest choice is biodegradable (38.89%, followed by oxodegradable (36.11%), and conventional (25.0%). Distinguishing characteristics of the plastic shopping bags are conventional and biodegradable in the supermarket, both domestically and compare them with plastic shopping bags in supermarkets abroad. Many plastic shopping bags at the supermarket that is normally labeled biodegradable products in accordance with government regulations. There are also some plastic shopping bags that do not include a specific label, but to include eco-friendly and the like related to the environment. There needs to analyze the characteristics of various types of plastic bags labeled by using the apparatus to differentiate its characteristics. Bioplastics are plastics that are able to be degraded by microbes in the soil due to its starch content. Bioplastics are expected to be the solution of environmental problems caused by the plastic shopping bags waste which became an environmental burden. Commercially, bioplastics were already being produced with the variation of percentage cassava addition. However the problem regarding such matter is the price of the product is still expensive compared to conventional plastic bags, because the starches are still needed in food and energy sectors. In this study, bioplastic is made from extracted durian seeds starch to be mixed with LDPE plastic ores, with the variation addition of starch concentration by 0- 50%. For comparison, starch from sago is used, so that the physical characteristics such as color and mechanical properties such as tensile strength, elongation and hardness can be compared. Decreasing of bioplastics weight was evaluated with burial in soil for 8 weeks. Anova test results showed that types of starch and % starch are added, give no significant difference (p> 0.05) on weight loss of plastic except in color. SEM analysis was conducted to compare the cavity between starch molecules and plastic polymer at 2500x magnification, which causes plastic strength reduced and becomes brittle when being pulled. Addition of 10% durian seed starch is proven as optimal polymer substitution without additives in making bioplastics, with mechanical characteristics that can be compared with sago and cassava starch.
Keyword: plastic shopping bags, oxodegradable, biodegradable, environmental friendly