Foaming bioplastic breaks down in seawater four times faster than paper

A novel, highly porous, biodegradable plastic has been found to degrade in seawater far faster than any other plastic material, and even quicker than paper.

Researchers have been working for a long time to find bioplastics that are both functional and yet degrade rapidly in the environment. Cellulose diacetate (CDA), a plastic-like polymer derived from wood pulp, has been shown to biodegrade in natural environments on time scales of months to years. However, it has been hypothesised that introducing microstructural pores into the material, a technique called foaming, could speed up the degradation process.