Developed by researchers from China's Northeast Forestry University, the bamboo plastic can biodegrade in soil within 50 days and offers a pathway towards sustainable plastic alternatives.
Cellulosics are a very mature field and there’s not a lot that is truly new in it. Regenerated cellulose is incredibly old technology and a material that biodegrades in 50 days is basically useless. Not even raw bamboo biodegrades that quickly. This is an incredibly sensationalist article and I am not responding sure what the purpose is. The biodegradable plastics space has a lot of cool things happening, and biodegradable cellulosics are a part of that, but this just seems like a fluff piece written about an interesting, but not groundbreaking, scientific discovery really only applicable for people working in the polymers industry.
This assumes that the cups can withstand storage and transport, and that they can withstand liquids being held in them. I have my doubts that an extremely biodegradable material could manage that. Further, I really doubt the 50 day number is accurate to begin with, which is why I mentioned that a piece of bamboo doesn’t break down in 50 days in the soil.
It says 50 days in soil, I’m guessing it’s more stable than that when kept as regular packaging. It probably relies on microorganisms and/or other creatures that can break down cellulose to be present, which in a warehouse shouldn’t be present
Even 50 days is relatively fine if it’s cheap enough to replace saran wrap for food products. Most perishables don’t last that long anyways
Of course every new invention is probably overreporting its successes for funding, but these kinds of innovation is always one step towards a better future.
Even 50 days is relatively fine if it’s cheap enough to replace saran wrap for food products
well we already have that
and that’s 50 days total, so those big commercial rolls of plastic wrap are much harder because they’re now perishable too: you can’t just stock a warehouse up
The bioplastic is a rigid material with high tensile strength a bit higher than conventional rigid plastics
Made from acidic solvents to create a gel consisting of cellulose
Can be closed loop recycled by redissolving with the same solvent
Depends on soil microbials to break down the cellulose within 50 days
Cost analysis presented it at 2.3k usd per ton, with the cheapest plastic (HIPS) at 1.3k/t and the most expensive (PLA) at 2.6k/t. Though the cost analysis didn’t show all the plastics it used for material comparison.
You can basically think of it as a fancy wood structure, since it’s primarily cellulose.
Isn’t cellophane a flexible plastic? This one is more comparable to hard plastics, which was my mistake since my initial assumption before actually reading the research paper was that it’s meant to replace things like plastic bags
Say that to Nature, one of the world’s most cited scientific journals by the Science Edition of the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (with an ascribed impact factor of 50.5)[1]
Why not one time uses, such as for tableware for food on airplanes? Intuitively it seems like we waste a lot in the “one time use” category where it’s also expensive and inconvenient to wash and reuse
Okay, why do we want plastics that biodegade slower than 50 days? Why would that be useless? I agree it’s not groundbreaking, I’m not even sure if using bamboo fibers is better than the cotton fibers we used to use. A real breakthrough would be in manufacturing time, if I’m remembering correctly it’s not a fast process to make this plastic.
If something’s fully biodegraded in fifty days, it’s probably weakened and full of holes to the point of being unusable after much less time than that, so you might only have a week to get a product from the factory into the hands of consumers, then used, then disposed off. Plenty of perishable foods are inedible after a week or two but take several months to fully biodegrade.
Cellulosics are a very mature field and there’s not a lot that is truly new in it. Regenerated cellulose is incredibly old technology and a material that biodegrades in 50 days is basically useless. Not even raw bamboo biodegrades that quickly. This is an incredibly sensationalist article and I am not responding sure what the purpose is. The biodegradable plastics space has a lot of cool things happening, and biodegradable cellulosics are a part of that, but this just seems like a fluff piece written about an interesting, but not groundbreaking, scientific discovery really only applicable for people working in the polymers industry.
I am not disagreeing but i do want to point out that
Does not seem entirely useless when i consider single use plastics. Imagine if festivals had cellulose cups?
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This assumes that the cups can withstand storage and transport, and that they can withstand liquids being held in them. I have my doubts that an extremely biodegradable material could manage that. Further, I really doubt the 50 day number is accurate to begin with, which is why I mentioned that a piece of bamboo doesn’t break down in 50 days in the soil.
It says 50 days in soil, I’m guessing it’s more stable than that when kept as regular packaging. It probably relies on microorganisms and/or other creatures that can break down cellulose to be present, which in a warehouse shouldn’t be present
Even 50 days is relatively fine if it’s cheap enough to replace saran wrap for food products. Most perishables don’t last that long anyways
Of course every new invention is probably overreporting its successes for funding, but these kinds of innovation is always one step towards a better future.
well we already have that
and that’s 50 days total, so those big commercial rolls of plastic wrap are much harder because they’re now perishable too: you can’t just stock a warehouse up
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63904-2
I went and read the paper, but the TLDR is:
You can basically think of it as a fancy wood structure, since it’s primarily cellulose.
Cellophane is almost 100 years old.
Isn’t cellophane a flexible plastic? This one is more comparable to hard plastics, which was my mistake since my initial assumption before actually reading the research paper was that it’s meant to replace things like plastic bags
AI slop article, they pump out 25 a day.
Say that to Nature, one of the world’s most cited scientific journals by the Science Edition of the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (with an ascribed impact factor of 50.5)[1]
Why not one time uses, such as for tableware for food on airplanes? Intuitively it seems like we waste a lot in the “one time use” category where it’s also expensive and inconvenient to wash and reuse
Lots of single-use plastics are years old by the time they make it to the end user.
The logistics of a plastic that degrades that quickly are difficult.
Mercedes made cars with degradable plastic in the wiring harnesses in the early 2000s. Every single car was scrapped within 8 years.
So how is this stuff different than the celluloid that they make pens and glasses out of? Because that stuff is pretty tough.
Also are you saying we want plastic that biodegades quicker? Like we want plastic we can compost faster than wood
I think you misread my comment to the point of thinking I meant the opposite of what I actually said. Please re-read and try again.
Okay, why do we want plastics that biodegade slower than 50 days? Why would that be useless? I agree it’s not groundbreaking, I’m not even sure if using bamboo fibers is better than the cotton fibers we used to use. A real breakthrough would be in manufacturing time, if I’m remembering correctly it’s not a fast process to make this plastic.
If something’s fully biodegraded in fifty days, it’s probably weakened and full of holes to the point of being unusable after much less time than that, so you might only have a week to get a product from the factory into the hands of consumers, then used, then disposed off. Plenty of perishable foods are inedible after a week or two but take several months to fully biodegrade.