I'd love to see a comparison with PHA, the only true bioplastic available for 3D printing right now (as far as I know). Sounds really promising!
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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I hope this is true but I remain skeptical of the initial claims. PLA is supposedly biodegradable as well, however in practice, it only biodegrades under very specific circumstances that are tricky to sustain without putting a good amount of work and planning in.
Regardless of whether or not it truly biodegradable, switching from oil to a plant based plastic is a carbon sink.
I'd imagine it's also better than having microplastics in my balls. Bamboo polymers in the brain sounds less threatening.
Plus if it biodegrades in 300 years that's still way better than what we are doing
Isn’t it only a carbon sink if you keep microbes from digesting it?
Is there a biodegradation of it that doesn’t release co2?
If it gets incorporated into the soil then some will stay there. Plus many landfill designs prevent decomposition entirely
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The claim is fifty days in soil, but I don’t know if that means any soil within standard temperature, moisture, and pH levels, or if they’d be allowed to publish that if it only works in the soil surrounding acid lakes or something.
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.
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.
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I am not disagreeing but i do want to point out that
biodegradable in 50 days
Does not seem entirely useless when i consider single use plastics. Imagine if festivals had cellulose cups?
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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.
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Great! But this doesn’t mention cost. Another biopolymer doesn’t matter at all unless it is cheaper than petroleum based polymers. In the end high volume consumer products are extremely price sensitive.
The petrochemical industry has significant economies of scale, making it difficult to dethrone. Also, there are some shady political shenanigans to ensure its continued existence. Getting rid of oil is going to require some radical changes.
Getting rid of oil would also require radical breakthroughs in solvents. I doubt oil is going anywhere even if ICEs and plastics stopped being used.
The thing is, oil is an incredible resource with properties unlike any other, so we should stop fucking burning it
If all we we use oil for is solvents and lubrication and such, it would probably be perfectly fine, and we would have enough for centuries.
We should also stop using it for food packaging. I don't need the thing that is covering my vegetables to last for hundreds of years.
If we stopped making power and transportation from burning oil and gas that would be a huge improvement. It's usage as a solevent or other applications is negligible.
Get rid of the plastics on top of that and we might actually have a chance
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Plastics were a luxury good 100 years ago. How much is petroleum distillation subsidized currently? That contributes to the cheapness of plastic. China has demonstrated that doing things for the people's benefit is worth their time instead of focusing on endless profit.
If Chinese companies start using bamboo plastic for disposable packaging it'll make more of an impact than you repeating oil oligarch propaganda
I’m not a propagandist, I’m an engineer who designs consumer products. As an environmentalist I actively campaigned my last employer in support of bio plastic options. However in over 30 years I have never been able to specify a single part made from bio plastic due to either material properties and/or the cost of raw resin. Like I said, good for the Chinese. But in America corporate greed rules.
There's no propaganda in that post. Unless forced by consumer demand or the government companies will not switch to a more expensive packaging. They're about quarterly profits, that's it.
Additionally, there are some oil applications we don't have a replacement for, however we have replacements for pretty much all the largest polluters (energy, transport, and plastic).
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wait it's just another spin on cellophane (with some cellulose formate)
it's good that process uses less harmful reagents, but it's not new-new thing
I had a friend who was working with a very exciting bioplastic that in the end was completely scrapped because it turned out the plastic made was carcinogenic or poison or something. I have hopes for something to come and replace plastic but we definitely need to make sure what we replace it with isn't just as awful is some new and terrible way.... Or just the same and terrible ways.
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Bamboo? You mean the stuff that grows well with less water and pesticides so people are all hooting and hollering, but people are razing forests to grow and requires enormous processing to extract the goodies?
https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/11/30/bamboo-eco-friendly-fabric-or-environmental-disaster
Don't forget, people are involved in this process, and that means only one thing: disappointment.
If you think anything involving people is doomed to fail then why don't you just go live in a cave somewhere and leave the rest of us alone?
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Jaysus, you just put everyone on Orphan crushing machine.
50 days worries me.
I know my market will buy 12 tons and have them sit around for 6 months. Mid Atlantic Giant Foods actualy found a way to make paper bags that can't last from the store to my counter without ripping into pieces.
50 days submerged in soil
or 150 days in the corner of the warehouse in a dank-non climate controlled corner.
Someone won't like how it feels in their mouth to suck on and will go back to penises
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