What material can effectively replace plastic to prevent harm? Today, the plastic problem is serious worldwide. Through the cumulative cycle of the biosphere, the plastic created by humans will return to humans. So what materials can effectively replace plastics? The one that is easily degraded is also more convenient to carry. I am not referring to ordinary cloth and other materials.
It does not currently exist.
1. The current degradable plastics are considered a scam:
Some are incorporating ingredients such as starch and calcium carbonate into traditional polyethylene to reduce the amount of polyethylene. This degradability is completely pseudo-degradable.
The true degradable plastic represented by polylactic acid can degrade less than 5% under natural landfill conditions. To be degradable requires industrialized strong acid hydrolysis or high-temperature fermentation. Moreover, the raw material of polylactic acid is food, and the production of plastic from food is itself a great waste. The price of polylactic acid is also extremely expensive compared to traditional plastics.
The core of plastic pollution is that all plastic products can be returned to the garbage disposal system for incineration or landfill or reuse. It is meaningless for urban plastic products to be degradable, and most of the urban plastic products can be returned to the garbage disposal system. Agricultural mulch films (which are often aging and broken in the land for 2 years before being discarded) and detergent plastic particles are the major causes of plastic pollution. Do not want to solve the main problem of the main contradiction, but stare at the secondary contradiction and hit the board. This is the same as a group of Bai Zuo driving a private jet yacht with a large displacement car at the Environmental Protection Conference.
Landfill degradation in itself is not a reasonable way to dispose of plastics. The correct disposal of plastics is to solve the problem of harmless incineration in the case of proper mixing. Just as discussing the degradability of cermet, enamel, glass and stone products is completely ridiculous.
2. As a commonly used material, the price/weight/isolation performance of plastic lacks substitutes.
Natural textiles are too expensive and still need to be coated with plastics or paint to achieve plastic-level insulation.
The insulation of paper is extremely poor. Most of the food contact paper used in the food industry is coated with plastic or wax. Since all plastic products are used, why not use all-plastic products? The pollution of paper production is not low.
metal, ceramic, enamel, glass, and stone are too heavy compared to plastic. The insulation of bamboo and wood products is barely acceptable, and the absorption of low-cost bamboo and wood products is too strong to meet the requirements. The price of dense bamboo and wood products with weak adsorption has gone up.
One problem with rubber, silicone rubber and plastic.
3. Materials can be roughly divided into the following categories: metal materials (ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, precious metals), inorganic non-metallic materials (cement, glass, ceramics), polymer materials (plastics, rubber, fibers) and composite materials. Three basic materials: metal, inorganic and polymer. The advantages of polymers are light weight, high strength, easy processing, and transparency. Which material do you think can be achieved?
Several major types of materials cannot be easily substituted for each other. The element composition and structure of a substance basically determine the main properties of the material. The performance can be improved through material processing technology.
The degradation of polymers is indeed a problem. At present, researchers are also working hard, but the progress is slow. For the foreseeable future, the use of plastics will be controlled in places where it is unnecessary to use plastics, but there is still no way to replace them in some necessary places.
