How are corn starch bags an environmentally beneficial alternative to plastic bags?

Corn plastic has been around for 20 years. Still, it was too expensive for widespread commercial usage until 1989, when Patrick Gruber, a Cargill chemist exploring new ways to use Corn, devised a way to create it more effectively. He made his prototype PLA items on his home stove with his wife, a chemist. Producing a pound of PLA used to cost $200; now, it costs less than $1. You can search for the best custom printed poly mailer bags in Australia.

What is Corn Starch plastic?

Polylactic acid (PLA), a plastic replacement derived from fermented plant starch, makes corn plastic. It’s quickly gaining traction as a viable alternative to regular plastic made from petroleum-based chemicals. The various applications of polylactic acid fossil fuel plastics could reduce the carbon footprint that fossil fuel plastics leave behind.

Corn starch plastic is a non-petroleum-based alternative to petroleum-based plastic. On the other hand, corn plastic is manufactured from corn starch polymers, a biodegradable and renewable resource. Although it resembles oil-based plastic, might corn plastic help us reduce our reliance on oil?

Corn starch plastic is becoming more popular due to a growing need for environmentally friendly products and compostable packaging. Many nations have outlawed the use of traditional petroleum-based plastic bags. Therefore, polylactic acid (PLA) is positioned to fill that gap as a viable and biodegradable alternative. Is this, however, the case?

Corn starch polymers provide the following advantages:

• Corn plastic packaging or things made of corn plastic will disintegrate in a high humidity composting environment with a temperature above 60° Celsius or 140° Fahrenheit in two months. As a result, it returns to the soil, where it originated.

• It’s made from maize, a renewable resource that can be replanted.

• Why Bioplastics do not generate poisonous fumes when burned because they do not contain poisons.

• A 68 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional fossil fuel plastic manufacture, resulting in significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions.

• Corn starch plastic uses 65 percent less energy than traditional petroleum-based polymers to manufacture.

• PLA plastic is less expensive than traditional plastic because these are biodegradable shipping bags.

• Unlike petroleum, maize starch polymers do not risk exploding during the manufacturing process, making them far safer to deal with.

• It can be used to decompose organic food waste.

• Because the bioplastic is free of BPAs and phthalates, no endocrine disruption is a concern.

• Packaging made of corn starch has less static electricity than packaging made of synthetic materials.

Corn starch polymers have the following disadvantages:

The pace of biodegradation and recycling is the most significant disadvantage of bioplastics and corn plastics. PLA must be disposed of in a composting facility because it is made from plants.

Why does Corn plastic only break down and degrade in a commercial composting facility’s hot and humid atmosphere? As a result, it can’t be composted at home.

• There are now just a few industrial composting facilities where corn starch plastic can be adequately decomposed.

• Composting isn’t the best way to dispose of waste because it produces methane, a greenhouse gas.

• When consumers recycle corn starch plastic instead of composting, the recycling stream can get contaminated.

• Due to a lack of infrastructure for composting PLA, it may still end up in landfills. If commercial composting is not available, PLA plastic may end up in landfills, where it will take the same quantity of time to decompose as regular plastic, or it may be mixed in with plastic recycling.

• Corn starch polymers raise the acidity of regular compost.

• Sorting and disposal of PLA is the responsibility of Material Recovery Facilities.

• Because polylactic acid and corn plastic are commonly manufactured from genetically modified Corn, there are even more concerns about the whole GMO mess.

• There are moral difficulties with maize use because there are people in the world who are hungry.

Last but not least

Corn starch plastic will take a long time to replace plastic bags since it requires proper biodegradation to provide the benefits it should. Otherwise, there may be an increase in a landfill. However, when it comes to packaging, it is still the proper step to take.