Annotated Bibliography

Oakes, Kelly. “Why Biodegradables Won't Solve the Plastic Crisis.” BBC Future, BBC, 5 Nov.

2019, www.bbc.com/future/article/20191030-why-biodegradables-wont-solve-the-plastic-

crisis.

Kelly Oaks tells about how biodegradable plastics wont solve our plastic pollution

problem, even if dissolved in salt water. However, it can help solve our food waste

problem. We know that biodegradable plastics can be dissolved by using microbes and be

left as carbon dioxide or water. Most of them are even made of plants, but it still can take

almost a year to partially break down into smaller pieces. Izabela Radecka, a professor of

biotechnology at the university of Wolverhampton, has been working on producing a

different kind of bio plastic called polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). They use microbes to

produce biopolymers under stress that are similar to synthetic plastics, yet fully

biodegradable. However, these pose their own problems. Imogen Napper at the

University of Plymouth carried varied bags with different material in them like sea water,

soil, and open air. The plastic was made into a bag to encase these elements in them and

it successfully biodegraded into the materials. But the due to the sunlight, the materials

within the plastic separated into their separate forms, and not into smaller, absorbable

chunks. While Napper and Radecka work on these issues, farmers saw it as an

opportunity to reduce food waste, by integrating food into the plastics. The process is the

same as recycling and if the food is properly composted it can release methane into the

soil, which is vital to stimulate plant growth. The process for this is still in question, as
the chance of contaminating normal plastic waste with food waste is high. Yet research is

leading towards bioengineering multiple elements to combine in the end.