Plastic degradation means that the polymer reaches the end of its life cycle and its molecular weight decreases, manifested as plastic brittleness, cracking, softening, hardening, and loss of mechanical strength. The degradation of ordinary plastic bags takes decades or even hundreds of years. However, non-degradable plastic bags will pollute the environment if they are not landfilled or burned. In order to protect the environment, biodegradable plastic bags have been created.

Degradable plastic bags refer to adding a certain amount of additives (such as starch, modified starch or other cellulose, photosensitizers, biodegradants, etc.) in the production process to reduce their stability and make them easier to degrade in the natural environment. plastic bag.

A photosensitizer is added to the plastic, and the plastic is gradually synthesized under sunlight. It belongs to an earlier generation of degradable plastics, and its defect is that the degradation time is difficult to predict due to sunlight and climate changes, so the degradation time cannot be controlled. Under the action of microorganisms, it can be completely synthesized into plastics of low molecular weight compounds.

It is characterized by convenient storage and transportation, as long as it is kept dry and does not need to be protected from light, it has a wide range of applications. It can not only be used for agricultural mulch and packaging bags, but also widely used in the field of medicine. With the development of modern biotechnology, more and more attention has been paid to biodegradable plastics, which have become a new generation of research and development hotspots.