A review of bioplastics as an alternative to petrochemical plastics: Its types, structure, characteristics, degradation, standards, and feedstocks

Abstract

Plastic is a widely available material in every aspect of life, and its long‐term usage is an important threat to the environment. An enormous quantity of plastic waste has been discharged into the environment throughout the world, resulting in global white pollution. The weathering of accumulated plastic waste in the environment, which can further break down into small fragments like microplastics and nanoplastics, will harm the ecosystem and humans. Therefore, the production and disposal of plastics need to be considered. Bioplastics are increasingly being used as an alternative to conventional plastics; their primary purpose is to solve pollution‐related problems with plastics. Bioplastics (BPs) are an adequate substitute for traditional plastics since they have less carbon footprint and are readily biodegradable, but not all bioplastics can degrade entirely in the natural environment. Due to less environmental impact, bioplastics are defined as polymers produced by using renewable feedstocks or by microorganisms. BP has a wide range of applications in the medical, automotive, and food packaging industries, and it has the potential impact on effect of development of low‐carbon environment. The standards bioplastics must meet to be called compostable or biodegradable are determined by certified worldwide standard processes. The primary purpose of this review is to focus on bioplastics as an alternative tool to plastic—its types, structure, characteristics, degradation behavior, standard techniques, feedstock used for the production of bioplastic, process for its development, and limitation of bioplastics.