Wuhan Has Invented Degradable Plastic Made from Starch

On June 5th, Wuhan city “World Environment Day” activity was initiated in Wuhan Huali Environmental Protection Company, whose experiments of kitchen garbage composting, degradable plastic bags and other technology have attracted citizens attention and have receive wide praise.

This company has since last year brought garbage composting machine from abroad. Putting leftovers, fruit peels and other kitchen garbage mixed with chaff in same proportion by volume into the machine. And two months later, kitchen garbage can be converted to organic manure, which can be used to fertilize vegetables, fruit trees and so on.
 
According to the president of the company Mr. Zhang, they have another two kinds of degradable environmentally friendly plastic and biobased plastic bag. Spreading this kind of product is able to reduce pollutant discharge, as well as transform waste plastic into organic manure by biodegradation and reutilization the manure.



It is reported that plant starch is the principal raw material of degradable plastic bags, plant starch can totally get degraded in compost without pollute the environment. And 50 percent straw powder is added during manufacturing to replace plastic material, thus reducing the usage of plastic from the beginning. Each ton ordinary plastic emits 3.13 tons carbon dioxide, while biobased plastic products only give off 0.6 ton carbon dioxide. So the effect of reducing carbon dioxide emission is quite obvious.

 

Huali Environmental Protection Company has manufactured nearly one hundred kinds of products, including rubbish bag, food tray, preservation film, cups. These products have entered into large supermarkets and shops in Wuhan and the prices are nearly the same with other products made from ordinary materials. Mr. Zhang said he hope to make a contribution to low-carbon lifestyle for the citizens.


NEWS