Bioplastics

Bioplastics or organic plastics include all plastics derived from renewable plant sources, such as vegetable oil or corn starch, as opposed to petroplastics from fossil fuel sources. They are potentially biodegradable and compostable, and are now popularly used for disposable packaging (trays and containers for fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat; bottles for softdrinks and dairy products), disposable tableware (crockery, cutlery, drinkware, straws) as well as shopping bags.

Europe accounts for 60% of the biodegradable materials market. In Japan bioplastics are used not for biodegradable applications, but as a thermoplastic from renewable sources, such as for car interiors and mobile phones.

The most common bioplastics are made from
TPS thermoplastic starch
PLA polylactic acid
PBS polybutylene succinate

The European Bioplastics Association shows examples of various bioplastic products here.

More information on Wikipedia.

Note that some bioplastics are NOT designed to be biodegradable. Their avoidance of extracting non-renewable resources is their major environmental benefit, rather than their potential to reduce the bulk of solid waste.

For instance, the 2007 Mazda Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid vehicle used PLA fabric for its seats and rigid PLA for its lower panel, shift panel, front console, glove box lid, and hydrogen tank cover.

Mitsubishi was also developing "Green Plastics" for some of its car interiors, such as bamboo-reinforced PBS for trim material and PLA with nylon fiber for its floor mats.

There is a continuing debate on the net environmental benefits of bioplastics. While the sources are renewable, the corn or sugarcane crops do need to be intensively farmed. Moreover despite claims of biodegradability, many bioplastics degrade too slowly, some up to 100 or 1000 years!

Samples of various bioplastics can be found in the FBE Materials Library.or trim material