And how is it ensured it does not partially degrade beyond use in well use? The balance is kinda big question. I do not want some material protecting food do degrade before best by date. Or in storage if I forget it there for few months.
Definitely a tricky thing to get right.
But the more I experiment with 3D printing, the more obvious it is that the problems include:
- separating this stuff out in the first place so that you know what can be composted
- parts fixed with non-biodegradable glues
- dyes, pigments, plasticisers that aren't biodegradable either
- difficulty reusing manufacturing waste
Industrial 3D printing is going to be a bigger and bigger part of our plastics use over time, because it enables products to be iterated long before you reach the kind of economy of scale that supports injection moulding. This also cuts down on waste; shocking amounts of plastic goes directly to landfill because of high-scale unsold inventory.
So a significant development would be actually improving the chances of reusing waste. But it's only a small part of that problem.
I love such things, but they need to be same or better on most if not all aspects than current ones, not in fashion: better for nature - check; but in these rather common situations they are much worse and can be actually hazard to humans - check.
I'd be more than willing to use a more degradable plastic for something that needs to get a chilled product from the meat department to my home.
Bottles don't carry themselves to solar-powered furnaces. If we assume that they did (and plastic oceans in the pacific demonstrate otherwise), then we could target the much-easier problem of making plastics that are stable when dumped in a landfill.
That way the lifespan of the contents wouldn't be limited by the bottle - minimising food waste - but we'd retain the ability to get rid of the bottle safely without huge landfills.
Depends on how much you dig I guess?
I wish.
That stuff doesn't biodegrade in natural conditions, only in commercial compost.
Just like sand goes through the whole process without breaking down.