ABSTRACT
Much effort in the past has been to stabilize plastics and make them more resistant to ultraviolet light and other environmental conditions that tend to make them degrade. Degradable plastics are made from polymers designed to break down in the environment through a number of mechanisms. The use of environmentally degradable plastics will increase as legislation is implemented mandating their use in specific applications. Key technology approaches to plastics degradation include photochemical action, microbiologic attack, physical stress, and chemical attack. Certainly a product that exists as litter exposed to the sun would utilize a photodegradable plastic compared to a product that will be buried in a landfill and might utilize a microbiologic degradation or an autooxidation mechanism. Plastic materials that degrade into environmentally innocuous end products has been proposed to alleviate the plastic waste disposal problem. This approach faces a number of technical and commercial hurdles.
