MICROPLASTICS
Microplastics are seen today as the main problem with plastics. They are tiny pieces of plastic, which are being found on land, in the sea, and now even in the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Some of the microplastics are coming from tyres and man-made fibres, and recycling can also be a source of microplastics, but most of the microplastics found in the environment are caused by the fragmentation of ordinary plastic.
Conditions in the environment cause the degradation of ordinary plastic articles[1] leading to embrittlement and fragmentation in as little as 4-8 weeks[2] particularly when exposed to sunlight, on land or when floating on the ocean. Fragmentation will be accelerated by colorants in the plastic.
The problem is that although these plastics are fragmenting, their molecular-weight remains too high for microbes to consume them, so they persist in the environment, getting smaller and smaller until they are small enough to get into our bodies. This persistent particulate litter takes many decades to degrade sufficiently to permit biodegradation.1,8 Also, fragmented conventional polymers are more likely to be occluded from sunlight by burial in topsoil or to be susceptible to biofouling over time, resulting in a reduced rate of degradation.3
This is why d2w biodegradable plastic was invented.
If plastic products are made with d2w biodegradable technology, and get into the open environment intentionally or by accident, the molecular-weight of the plastic will reduce much more quickly and it will become a waxy substance which is no longer a plastic. It will then have become a source of nutrition for naturally-occurring micro-organisms.
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) were asked to study this type of plastic in December 2017. They made a Call for Evidence, and they advised after 10 months that they were not convinced that it creates microplastics. There is no evidence that microplastics from this type of plastic have ever been found in the environment.
Professor Ignacy Jakubowicz, one of the world’s leading polymer scientists has described the process as follows: “The degradation process is not only a fragmentation, but is an entire change of the material from a high molecular weight polymer, to monomeric and oligomeric fragments, and from hydrocarbon molecules to oxygen-containing molecules which can be bioassimilated.” .https://www.biodeg.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Reply-to-Ellen-MacArthur-Foundation-from-Prof-Ignacy-Jakubowicz-21-8-17.pdf
The prodegradant catalyst in the d2w masterbatch accelerates oxidative degradation, but also – critically – removes the dependence of this process on sunlight so that, unlike conventional plastics or photo-degradable plastics, degradation will continue in darkness – even if buried – until biodegradability[3] is achieved.
Biodegradable plastic was patented fifty years ago by the scientists who had themselves created plastics and who realised that the durability which they had achieved could actually be a problem. If their invention had been widely adopted there would be no ocean garbage patches today, but instead the plastics industry chose to continue to make conventional plastic, which started to accumulate in the oceans and has now become a serious problem. Nevertheless it is not too late – If the invention is widely adopted today the accumulation of plastic in the oceans will be reduced and eventually reversed.
Foremost among these scientists was Professor Gerald Scott, Professor of Chemistry at Aston University. He was the holder of several patents for the technology, and was later the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Biodegradable Plastics Association (BPA). He published the results of his work in many scientific publications including “Polymers & the Environment” (ISBN 9780854045785); “Degradable Polymers; Principles & Applications” (ISBN 1-4020-0790-6); and “Programmed-Life Plastics from Polyolefins: A New Look at Sustainability” https://www.biodeg.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Scott-Wiles-paper-June-2001.pdf
Professor Scott and other polymer scientists made it clear in their published work that this type of biodegradable plastic will degrade and then biodegrade in the open environment very much more quickly than ordinary plastic, leaving no persistent fragments and no toxicity. Polymer scientists were themselves the authors of the standards for biodegradable plastics (ASTM D6954 and BS 8472) and it is not correct to say that there is insufficient evidence of biodegradability, or that there are no relevant standards. As to the Standards, see www.biodeg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Swift-evidence-to-BEIS.pdf
In 2018 the scientific evidence was reviewed by a distinguished former deputy judge of the High Court in England. https://www.biodeg.org/uk-judge-find-the-case-for-oxo-biodegradable-plastic-proven/ This has been confirmed by later research published by Queen Mary University London in February 2020. https://www.biodeg.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/published-report-11.2.20-1.pdf
The most recent and most important evidence is the OXOMAR report. On 4th September 2020 scientists at the Laboratoire d’Océanographie Microbienne (LOMIC) reported on a four-year study (the OXOMAR project) sponsored by the French government, of biodegradable plastics in the marine environment. Their final report, citing six earlier published reports, was published in March 2021 https://anr.fr/Project-ANR-16-CE34-0007
The purpose of OXOMAR was to investigate whether biodegradable plastics will fully biodegrade in a reasonable time in the marine environment, and to investigate whether biodegradable plastic or its by-products create any toxicity in the marine environment. It involved the complementary expertise of four independent laboratories (CNEP, LOMIC, ICCF, and IFREMER).
They found congruent results from their multidisciplinary approach that clearly shows that biodegradable plastics biodegrade in seawater and do so with a significantly higher efficiency than conventional plastics.
However, no government in the western world has a policy for dealing with plastic waste which has escaped into the open environment, and cannot therefore fit into a circular economy. Their blind spot is that despite their best efforts a significant amount of plastic will continue to get into the open environment for the foreseeable future, which cannot be collected for recycling, composting, or anything else.
D2w biodegradable technology is specifically designed to deal with this problem, and it is now compulsory in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen. It will degrade in landfill if oxygen is present and will then biodegrade, but if it has been sent to landfill it has been responsibly disposed of and is no longer a problem. It is not designed for composting, and ASTM D6400 and European Standard EN13432 are not therefore relevant. It can be recycled if collected during its useful life. See https://www.biodeg.org/subjects-of-interest/recycling-2/
The plastics industry could have addressed this environmental problem, to the great benefit of themselves and the environment, by making everyday plastic products with biodegradable technology so that they would become biodegradable much more quickly and would be recycled back into nature by bacteria and fungi. However, instead of engaging with the experts in the biodegradable plastics industry and seeking to understand it better and to explain it to their customers and to the public they have continued to make conventional plastic and have persuaded themselves that recycling will solve the problem.
It must however be obvious that recycling cannot deal with the plastic which escapes into the open environment from which it cannot be collected. Nor can the type of plastic marketed as compostable deal with the problem, for it has to be collected and taken for composting. In fact, the BPA does not consider that there is any useful role for plastics in composting (see https://www.biodeg.org/subjects-of-interest/composting/
What is a microplastic?
According to ECHA https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/db081bde-ea3e-ab53-3135-8aaffe66d0cb “Irrespective of their source, microplastics are persistent and universal pollutants. When products containing them are used, microplastics can be released to the environment where they stay for centuries, as they do not biodegrade.”
At Recital 11 of the draft Microplastics Act D083921/01 the EU Commission says “The Annex XV restriction report https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/05bd96e3-b969-0a7c-c6d0-441182893720 proposed to exclude degradable (or water-soluble) polymers, and natural polymers that have not been chemically modified, as they do not possess the same long-term persistence and, therefore, do not contribute to the identified risk.”
Furthermore, when ECHA proposed a restriction on intentionally-added microplastics, they said that “it concerns only those that are consistent with the microplastic definition and relevant to the concern: less than 5 mm in size, solid, particulate, insoluble and non-biodegradable.”
A small fragment of material is not therefore a “microplastic” if it is biodegradable.
This view is supported by the report by the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment “Towards a definition of microplastics – Considerations for the specification of physico-chemical properties” which says (p11) The presence of plastics in the environment is of great concern because plastics are persistent
“From the perspective of the marine environment, microplastics that disappear quickly by natural processes (e.g. .. biodegradation to harmless degradation products), or microplastics that never reach the aquatic environment are not of concern.”
7.1 “the fact that a material is a microplastic does not necessarily mean that emission-reducing measures improve environmental quality. The environment only benefits from measures that actually reduce the exposure of living organisms to microplastics.”
The addition of Symphony’s d2w masterbatch is a measure that actually reduces the exposure of living organisms to microplastics – by making them biodegradable and significantly reducing their dwell-time in the environment.
References:
[1] Gewert, B., Plassmann, M. M., & MacLeod, M. (2015). Pathways for degradation of plastic polymers floating in the marine environment. Environmental Sciences: Processes and Impacts, 17(9), 1513–1521. https://doi.org/10.1039/c5em00207a See also “Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety” Volume 271, February 2024, Accelerated fragmentation of two thermoplastics (polylactic acid and polypropylene) into microplastics after UV radiation and seawater immersion – ScienceDirect
showing that 76-day UV radiation induced the fragmentation of plastic items and microplastics formation, from both PP and PLA items.
[2] Karlsson, T. (2018). Influence of thermooxidative degradation on the in situ fate of polyethylene in temperate coastal waters. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 135, pp.187-194.
[3] Vogt, N. B., & Kleppe, E. A. (2009). Biodegradable polyolefins show continued and increased thermal oxidative degradation after exposure to light. Polymer Degradation and Stability. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2009.01.002