page_title: Biodegradable additives
section_title: Environmental Impact
hierarchical_section_title: Biodegradable additives / Environmental Impact
caption_attribution_description: English: this is at village level plastic wastage in batlapalem eg dist,ap
context_page_description: Biodegradable additives are additives that enhance the biodegradation of polymers by allowing microorganisms to utilize the carbon within the polymer chain as a source of energy. Biodegradable additives attract microorganisms to the polymer through quorum sensing after biofilm creation on the plastic product. Additives are generally in masterbatch formation that use carrier resins such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene or polyethylene terephthalate.
  Most common synthetic plastics are not biodegradable, and both chemical and physical properties of plastics play important roles in the process of plastic degradation. The addition of biodegradable additives can influence the mechanism of plastic degradation by changing the chemical and physical properties of plastics to increase the rate of degradation. Biodegradable additives can convert the plastic degradation process to one of biodegradation. Instead of being degraded simply by environmental factors, such as sunlight or heat, biodegradable additives allow polymers to be degraded by microorganisms and bacteria through direct or indirect attack.
context_section_description: Biodegradable additives have the potential to significantly reduce the accumulation of plastics in the environment. Plastics are ubiquitous in everyday life and are produced and disposed of in huge quantities each year. Many common plastics, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, poly(vinyl chloride), and poly(ethylene terephthalate), that can be found in most consumer products are not biodegradable. Furthermore, only about 9-10% of discarded plastics are recycled each year. Non-biodegradable plastics accumulate in the environment, threatening human, animal, and environmental health.
  Current solutions to dealing with the amount of plastic being thrown away include burning the plastics and dumping them into large fields or landfills. Burning plastics leads to significant amounts of air pollution, which is harmful to human and animal health. When dumped into fields or landfills, plastics can cause changes in the pH of the soil, leading to soil infertility. Furthermore, plastic bottles and plastic bags that end up in landfills are frequently consumed by animals, which then clogs their digestive systems and leads to death.
  Because of the substantial growth in plastic consumption, biodegradable additives are becomingly increasingly necessary to increase the rate of degradability of common plastics. Current research is focused on finding new biodegradable additives that will shorten the degradation process from taking decades to centuries to taking only a few months to a few years.
caption: Large areas of land are currently covered in plastic waste. Biodegradable additives will help speed up the biodegradation process of plastics so that plastic pileups will be less frequent.[16]
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