Developed by researchers from China's Northeast Forestry University, the bamboo plastic can biodegrade in soil within 50 days and offers a pathway towards sustainable plastic alternatives.
Cellulosics are a very mature field and there’s not a lot that is truly new in it. Regenerated cellulose is incredibly old technology and a material that biodegrades in 50 days is basically useless. Not even raw bamboo biodegrades that quickly. This is an incredibly sensationalist article and I am not responding sure what the purpose is. The biodegradable plastics space has a lot of cool things happening, and biodegradable cellulosics are a part of that, but this just seems like a fluff piece written about an interesting, but not groundbreaking, scientific discovery really only applicable for people working in the polymers industry.
It says 50 days in soil, I’m guessing it’s more stable than that when kept as regular packaging. It probably relies on microorganisms and/or other creatures that can break down cellulose to be present, which in a warehouse shouldn’t be present
Even 50 days is relatively fine if it’s cheap enough to replace saran wrap for food products. Most perishables don’t last that long anyways
Of course every new invention is probably overreporting its successes for funding, but these kinds of innovation is always one step towards a better future.
Even 50 days is relatively fine if it’s cheap enough to replace saran wrap for food products
well we already have that
and that’s 50 days total, so those big commercial rolls of plastic wrap are much harder because they’re now perishable too: you can’t just stock a warehouse up
The bioplastic is a rigid material with high tensile strength a bit higher than conventional rigid plastics
Made from acidic solvents to create a gel consisting of cellulose
Can be closed loop recycled by redissolving with the same solvent
Depends on soil microbials to break down the cellulose within 50 days
Cost analysis presented it at 2.3k usd per ton, with the cheapest plastic (HIPS) at 1.3k/t and the most expensive (PLA) at 2.6k/t. Though the cost analysis didn’t show all the plastics it used for material comparison.
You can basically think of it as a fancy wood structure, since it’s primarily cellulose.
Why not one time uses, such as for tablewear for food on airplanes? Intuitively it seems like we waste a lot in the “one time use” category where it’s also expensive and inconvenient to wash and reuse
Cellulosics are a very mature field and there’s not a lot that is truly new in it. Regenerated cellulose is incredibly old technology and a material that biodegrades in 50 days is basically useless. Not even raw bamboo biodegrades that quickly. This is an incredibly sensationalist article and I am not responding sure what the purpose is. The biodegradable plastics space has a lot of cool things happening, and biodegradable cellulosics are a part of that, but this just seems like a fluff piece written about an interesting, but not groundbreaking, scientific discovery really only applicable for people working in the polymers industry.
It says 50 days in soil, I’m guessing it’s more stable than that when kept as regular packaging. It probably relies on microorganisms and/or other creatures that can break down cellulose to be present, which in a warehouse shouldn’t be present
Even 50 days is relatively fine if it’s cheap enough to replace saran wrap for food products. Most perishables don’t last that long anyways
Of course every new invention is probably overreporting its successes for funding, but these kinds of innovation is always one step towards a better future.
well we already have that
and that’s 50 days total, so those big commercial rolls of plastic wrap are much harder because they’re now perishable too: you can’t just stock a warehouse up
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63904-2
I went and read the paper, but the TLDR is:
You can basically think of it as a fancy wood structure, since it’s primarily cellulose.
Why not one time uses, such as for tablewear for food on airplanes? Intuitively it seems like we waste a lot in the “one time use” category where it’s also expensive and inconvenient to wash and reuse
Lots of single-use plastics are years of by the time they make it to the end user.
The logistics of a plastic that degrades that quickly are difficult.