Endterm 2.2

Plastic waste is one of the biggest problems in today’s world. This material is being used for countless products and is everywhere around us. Even though it has a lot of advantages such as being durable and cheap, it also creates a massive problem for the environment. Plastic takes 20 to 500 years to degrade meaning that since it is greatly being used for single use packaging, it causes extreme pollution. This material is causing an estimate of 100 million marine species to die every year. This is just insanely heart breaking to know and consciously keep on being a part of this mass murder by not taking action.

A researcher called Paul Kohl and his research team have developed a new type of polymer plastic that disappears by itself in a very short term compared to other plastics. This new polymer can form flexible sheets and tough mechanical parts. This plastic has a special feature which allows it to disappear in short time when it is exposed to sunlight. The material can survive room temperature as well but it would increase the lifespan of the material if kept cold. This plastic starts disappearing at 80 degrees Celsius and becomes a leaves a residue which can get washed away by rain or any form of water. This is very important in terms of avoiding pollution. Plastic consists of synthetic polymers, long chains of smaller molecules linked with superstrong bonds. Reverting them to their building blocks requires breaking each bond, akin to ripping apart a necklace bead by bead. Because this process can be affected by humidity, acidity, temperature and other factors in a material’s environment, the breakdown can take months. If kept in lower temperature then room temperature, it could take up to 20 years for it to disintegrate. This is really good compared to the single use plastic we’re used to which takes up to 400 years to completely disintegrate.

I want to base my research on this material and use it to replace a plastic item that is being constantly littered and cause pollution. Unfortunately this polymer has some limitations. It is not yet safe enough to be used for food packaging. It is still being worked on but currently it could be toxic if it was accidentally consumed through food. After being in the Netherlands quite some time now, I realised that there are so many small plastic seal bags everywhere on the streets. This is mainly due to the extreme consumption of marijuana in the Netherlands. Weed is sold in these small seal bags and they are usually thrown on the streets. I noticed this problem before but I needed to make sure that there are actually that many baggies around the city. So I went on the streets of Rotterdam and made primary research. I counted all the plastic baggies I saw when I was walking around the city. I counted 13 of them only in half an hour. I think this is a lot and this definitely contributes to the increase in plastic waste. I want to use this self disintegrating polymer to replace the current plastic seal bags. So, when it is thrown away, it disappears in a short time meaning that there is no waste. The left over smudge gets washed away by rain.

This material is also 3D printable meaning that it could be used for many different areas. My initial idea was to use this material to replace cold beverage bottles or water bottles but unfortunately this material is not yet safe for food products. Another place where it could be used is tents that are used in festivals. Many people go to festivals with their tents and leave them there causing waste. If those tents were made out of this material then it would be much easier to avoid the waste mess.

This is how the concept would look

To trick PPHA into being pseudo stable, Kohl and his colleagues linked the chain into a circle. “It only depolymerizes from the end inward,” Kohl says. With its tips linked together, the chain does not break down as easily. “It’s like peeling a banana,” Kohl explains. “It’s hard to peel from the middle.” Although the circle structure keeps the modified PPHA from breaking down at a typical room temperature, if a trigger snips just one bond, “the whole thing instantly depolymerizes and completely falls apart,” he says.