What is it about?
The increasing presence of bioplastic products on the market makes it necessary to have a clear overview of bioplastics waste management. In fact, most of these materials are labeled as biodegradable and compostable, meaning that their fate is to be treated with the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. This review is focused on the methodologies (from the most common to the recent ones) to monitor biodegradation process of bioplastics in composting and anaerobic digestion. The improvement of the basic knowledge of this process can prevent the release of not completely degraded micro-pieces into the environment as part of compost.
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Perspectives
This article comes out from a deep study of the topic during my PhD and has been an interesting opportunity for me to increase my knowledge in the field of bioplastics degradation and develop new ideas for the research project. I hope that the review is a starting point to highlight the complexity of the topic and the need to improve the research in this field to prevent environmental impact due to the eventual microplastics release.
Federica Ruggero
University of Firenze
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Methodologies to assess biodegradation of bioplastics during aerobic composting and anaerobic digestion: A review, Waste Management & Research The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy, June 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0734242x19854127.
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