Bioplastics in the Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Bioplastics have recently begun to form a big part of our everyday life as consumers and are expected to continue to do so at an exponential rate following various key legislations around the world imposing a ban on several types of conventional plastics (e.g., Directive 2019/904/EU, ban of nondegradable plastics in China by the end of 2022). Bioplastics is a generic term that is often confused with biodegradable plastics. A bioplastic may be biobased, but not biodegradable, whilst there are cases of petrochemical (conventional) plastics that can be biodegradable. Most research on the biodegradability of bioplastics has dealt with aerobic (composting) environments; as a result, the term “compostable” differs from the term “biodegradable”. A lot of standards (ASTM, CEN, ISO) exist on how to assess the biodegradability of bioplastics, primarily under aerobic environments. In addition, new bioplastics are manufactured every year with the goal to make them readily degradable and durable, as conventional plastics, and to maintain their cost relatively low and comparable to that of petrochemical plastics—something which is not yet the case, as the latter still remain less expensive. The valorization of organic wastes to manufacture novel bioplastics is gaining a lot of attention too. In some countries, the use of biodegradable plastics is mandatory during the separate collection of biowaste. How biodegradable those bioplastics are, however? Can they be only degraded, and how fast, and what can be their impact on the recycling of conventional plastics if accidentally mixed with them?

The goal of this Special Issue is to tackle some of the above issues in order to highlight the role of bioplastics under a circular economy framework. This SI, therefore, welcomes manuscripts on the following topics as regards to bioplastics:

• Biodegradable vs. compostable vs oxodegradable bioplastics;
• Conversion of organic wastes to bioplastics;
• Other novel materials to manufacture bioplastics;
• Aerobic and anaerobic biodegradability
• Lacks in the existing standards to assess their biodegradability
• Compostable bioplastics at the industrial scale
• Chemical recycling
• Impact of bioplastics on the recycling of conventional plastics
• Indexes to assess their biodegradation
• Economics of their production and use
• Life cycle analyses and carbon footprint of their production and use
• Microplastics generated from bioplastics
• Bioplastics in marine environments

Dr. Dimitrios Komilis
Guest Editor

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