Why oxo-biodegradable?

It is undoubted that plastics is an essential packaging material in our daily life, but thousands of tons of plastic waste are entering the world’s environment every day, and will remain there for decades.

Although there are taxes and incentives to reduce and recycle plastics, but it is almost impossible to collect all the plastic, where these ordinary plastics will end up creating microplastics.

Before getting into the main topic, first let’s understand microplastic.

Microplastic is a serious environmental problem. They are caused by the embrittlement and erosion of plastic, and these fragments of plastic can lie or float around for decades. Microplastic is a major contributor when it comes to plastic pollution.

To combat plastic pollution, we introduce the oxo-biodegradable technology, which makes plastic not only degrade into smaller pieces of microplastics but also biodegrade into natural waste. This technology is carried out using carefully researched and tested oxo-biodegradable additive, namely d2w®. d2w® works by breaking the polymer chain of the plastic product and reduces the molecular weight to a level that is accessible by microorganisms. When the polymer is broken down into carbon and hydrogen, the material is no longer plastic and they are bio-assimilated the same way as natural waste, so called biodegradation by microorganisms. The process converts plastics into carbon dioxide, water and biomass that return to the nature.

Therefore, everyday plastic items should urgently be made oxo-biodegradable, so that they will degrade and biodegrade in a much shorter time, if they get into the open environment.

It is essential to understand that oxo-biodegradable plastics do not just fragment – they rapidly convert at the end of their useful life into materials with a low molecular weight which are no longer plastics and have become a food-source for naturally-occurring bacteria and fungi.

Why not crop-based or plant-based plastic? Here’s some reason why.

Firstly, crop-based plastics are designed for other reasons and are in any event the wrong choice if we are concerned about litter – because they are tested to biodegrade in an industrial composting unit – not in the open environment, nor do they convert to compost – they convert into CO2.

Besides, oxo-biodegradable plastics can be recycled with ordinary plastics if collected during their useful life, but crop-based plastics cannot. Oxo-biodegradable plastics are made from a by-product of oil-refining, so the same amount of oil would be extracted from the ground even if plastic did not exist. Conversely, crop-based alternatives are rather expensive, which also consume land and water resources as well as fossil-fuels.

All in all, the very reason of why oxo-biodegradable plastic has been invented is to become the solution against the issue of plastic pollution. It promises that if plastic litter escapes into the open environment, it will not be there for decades as conventional plastic is now.