Plastic is one of the best modern human inventions over the past 100 years, bringing exceptional benefits to our lives. However, given its durability and longevity, plastic waste becomes an immense challenge for a greener, better world.

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The Challenges

When plastic becomes waste, its durability becomes an issue - it takes 500 to 1,000 years for plastic to naturally degrade.

During its natural degradation, plastic undergoes physical fragmentation and becomes dangerous microplastics.

Human behaviour and inappropriate waste management can lead to up to 8 million tonnes of plastic 'leaking' into the ocean each year.

Why Degradable Solutions?

We believe in the potential benefits of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) and we promote it, however this is not enough as it does not address the end of life of plastics. We need a fourth R - return to the earth. This would truly return plastics to the earth naturally and complete the life cycle cycle as a whole.

REDUCE

We should only use what we need. Education, advocacy, incentives as well as disincentives (e.g. paid plastic shopping bags) to promote this idea can be implemented.

REUSE

Product design and education should encourage people to reuse as much as possible. For example in Indonesia, the thin plastic shopping bags are heavily reused as garbage can liner to the point that the thicker garbage liner plastic, which are prevalent in developed countries, do not exist.

RECYCLE

It is critical to continue improve plastic recycling rate; we all should do our best here. However, we need to also recognize there are pragmatic technical (e.g., multi-layer laminated plastic packaging) and economical (e.g., bulky polystyrene as well as other low value items are hard to collect economically) limitations. Plastic also generally cannot be recycled forever (it downgrades).

RETURN TO EARTH

After allowing for all 3R above, the degradable technology then will degrade plastics at chemical and molecular levels – cutting off its long hydrocarbon chains (not physical fragmentation!)- and allowing microbes to consume it and help reduce accumulation at the landfill. It will degrade the plastic within 2-5 years, much better than natural 500-1000 years.

GSmach Solutions

1) Biodegradable Additive Masterbatch

Compound the Degradable Additive Masterbatch with any plastic such as PE/PET/PP etc. It speeds up the molecular and chemical degradation of plastic, thus helping to solve the massive accumulation of plastic waste.

Our customer Greenhope from Indonesia has this masterbatch with the name Oxium, which is US-patented. Oxium’s proprietary formula is made of naturally available minerals that are non-toxic, non-heavy metals.

Oxium is used as an additive in low dosage towards regular plastic production and has proven to be an effective and serves as an economical solution.

2) Biodegradable Plastic: PPC, PABT, PLA, PBS, PCL, TPS, PVA, PVOH

a) Melt PBAT compounding with PLA or PPC

The melt PBAT material with temperature 240℃ is fed into twin screw extruder by a melt pump, and add the PLA or PPC pellets and chain extender additive into extruder by the loss-in-weight feeder. This is direct compounding which can save 40% energy and better dispersion, comparing with PBAT pellet compounding with PLA or PPC

Needs long L/D for reacting

Needs under water pelletizing system for high output capacity and automatically process

Needs vacuum packing system

Technical Specifications of Extruder:

b) PLA/PBS compounding with starch powder

Premix and long L/D for better dispersion

Special feeder for anti-bridge

Air cooling die face cutting for PLA base, and air cooling strand pelletizing for PBS base

Need vacuum packing system

c) PVA compounding with starch

Two stage mixer for premixing and reacting

Special feeder for anti-bridge

Air cooling die face cutting system, need water cooling jacket for die plate

Need vacuum packing system

3) Biodegradable Product Flow

①Biodegradable raw materials→Twin screw extruder machine→Plastic granules→Blown film machine→Bags making machine→Plastic Bags

②Biodegradable raw materials→Twin screw extruder machine→Plastic granules→Sheet machine→Blister machine→Plastic Cup, plate,boxes and so on

③Biodegradable raw materials→Twin screw extruder machine→Plastic granules→Injection molding machine→Plastic knife , fork,bench,Thick products,and so on

4) Biodegradable Product Flow