spirulina bioplastics tagged posts

New Biodegradable Plastics are Compostable in your Backyard

A person working at a lab bench. The person is holding a tray of green powder and is scooping the powder into a metal mold shaped like the UW logo.
Mallory Parker, UW materials science and engineering doctoral student, adds spirulina powder to a UW logo mold. Once this mold goes in the hot-press, it will generate a UW logo-shaped piece of plastic.Mark Stone/University of Washington

We use plastics in almost every aspect of our lives. These materials are cheap to make and incredibly stable. The problem comes when we’re done using something plastic—it can persist in the environment for years. Over time, plastic will break down into smaller fragments, called microplastics, that can pose significant environmental and health concerns.

The best-case solution would be to use bio-based plastics that biodegrade instead, but many of those bioplastics are not designed to degrade in backyard composting conditions...

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