Surely you have ever heard about the existence of a product biodegradable. It is normally related to reducing the environmental impact of pollution, waste and damage to flora and fauna. Therefore, today we are going to go into depth on this topic and comment on the most important aspects of biodegradable products.
Do you want to know what they are and how important they are for the good state of conservation of the environment? In this post we will tell you everything, keep reading.
What is a biodegradable product
We have to know well what this concept means if we want to know what impacts it has on the environment and how we can promote this class of products. It is a product made up of materials that they are capable of being decomposed by biological organisms such as bacteria, fungi and algae. These products degrade in a favorable environment of light, humidity, oxygen and necessary temperatures. The result is the chemical and biochemical simplification of the molecules and this is how the carbon they contain is mineralized in the form of CO2.
In a simpler way of counting, it can be said that any product discarded in nature will degrade itself. Although they take more or less time to degrade, all products end up doing so. For example, plastic is one of the products with the lowest degradation rate. If you throw a plastic bag in any natural environment, you will have to wait thousands of years for it to completely degrade. Imagine then the damage so strong that uncontrolled plastic bag emissions are doing.
The most common breakdown of any type of product is by bacteria. There are many types of bacteria with a high rate of assimilation of nutrients that results in biodegradation of the product. This concept of biodegradability is widely used in the world of ecology and recycling in order to know the degradation time of each one.
This is how a large part of organic waste is managed. For example, if we have a roll of paper or a plastic bag, we can compare its degradation and see that the paper in several weeks is already degraded while the plastic bag takes thousands of years.
Acceleration of biodegradation
Industrially, the biodegradation of products can be exploited to generate energy. It is important to know how long each element takes to decompose as it can serve as a new product. The first thing is to be able to treat them for the production of compost. There are many landfills that are at the top and all the well separated organic fraction that can serve as compost can help reduce the volume of waste in the landfill, in addition to helping agriculture.
Thanks to the organic compounds of the houses such as food scraps, garden pruning, etc. Compost can be made through the biodegradation process. This compost is of high quality and has a good amount of minerals so that the soil can be more fertilized and produce better.
This is one of the ways that biodegradable products can be used and reincorporated into the life cycle of the products. Thanks to the photosynthetic activity of plants and algae and the sun, the carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere is gradually eliminated in order to synthesize sugars and other substances that are used to grow.
When an organism dies, the microorganisms that exist around the entire environment feed on organic material and with the biodegradation process they release water and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
If we want to accelerate the degradation process, we must know well the bacteria that act and the most feasible environment in each case so that the biodegradation takes place more quickly. In addition, each organic waste has a time it takes to fully degrade. In colder and drier environments the degradation processes are slower. The ideal is to concentrate all the biodegradable in a warm and humid place. Biodigesters arise from this idea.
Advantages and disadvantages of biodegradable
Biodegradable materials can have a great advantage in minimizing the impacts of human pollution on the environment. We are going to point out some of the main advantages.
- They are products that are consumed quickly. Being biodegradable, nature itself is continuously degrading it. This helps to prevent excessive soil, river or landfill contamination. This is how we prevent garbage from crowding and causing impacts.
- Reduce carbon dioxide emissions. During the production of bioplastics, gases such as CO2 are emitted, but it is minimal compared to the manufacturing process of common plastics.
- They consume less energy. As they are made with biodegradable materials, they require less energy and do not require fossil fuels to manufacture. By requiring less energy and materials in their manufacture, they can be produced on a larger scale.
- They are also recyclable (See Recycling symbols). Like conventional plastics, these can be recycled to bring products back to the useful life cycle. They do not contain any type of chemicals, toxins compared to other types of plastics.
- Need for compost. In agriculture there is a great demand for compost as a fertilizer. This compost does not pollute the soil like other nitrogen fertilizers or groundwater.
Among the disadvantages that we find we have the problems that they can have in engineering and the possible risk of contamination as a result of poor waste separation. If bioplastics are separated with the rest of common plastics, they can be mixed and no longer useful. In addition, they will pollute excessively. And there are many people who do not know how to differentiate well between bioplastics and conventional plastics.
Damage to non-degradable waste
We have mentioned the advantages of biodegradable. Now we are going to comment on the damage caused by those that do not degrade in the environment. Plastics are the oldest and most abundant products on earth. Plastics have been found in waters around the world. Its particles are disintegrating until they are part of our food chain.
As you can see, what is biodegradable is necessary to enhance it if we want to improve our environment and health.
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