Led by Amir Reza Bagheri, Andreas Greiner, and Seema Agarwal, the year-long study examined the stability of five polymers labeled biodegradable—poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), polycaprolactone (PCL), polylactic acid (PLA), poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), and Ecoflex—and one non-biodegradable, polyethylene terephthalate.
Films were immersed in both fresh and artificial sewater and kept at constant temperature. Complete degradation was observed only for PLGA in less than one year, whereas PCL, PLA, and PET did not degrade at all. PHB degraded by about 8%. Rates were similar for both seawater and fresh water.
More than 2.5 million tons of plastics end up in Earth’s waterways every year. The work was published in a recent issue of Global Challenges.