Biodegradable plastic

There are many biopolymers that can be recycled. Two of most important polymers are cotton and wool. The latter is one of the most complex made up of amino acids. Cellulose is also a polymer that essentially recycles itself made up of glucose units. Just guessing and looking at y-butyrolactone or gamma-butyrolactone, I would guess it could be recycled.

Starch can be degraded easily by pour into acid. Most proteins are polymers of amino acids. Nucleaic acid is polymer, but large one.

There are other polymers that are much more difficult to recycle. Hydrocarbons, for example, that are not recyclable without an extraordinary amount of time or cost.

It is unclear how Miao Hong and Eugene Y.-X. Chen's polymerization of γ-butyrolactone can be applied in a commericial environment and on a large scale. Moroever, some countries where the proliferation of non-recyclable plastics in the environment has been a problem are dealing with the problem by banning plastic bags, which is likely more cost effective and less technology intensive than the rather complex process of the polymerization and recycling of gamma-butyrolactone that Miao Hong and Eugene Y.-X. Chen describe.

The polymerization and recycling of gamma-butyrolactone looks interesting, but we will have to see where it takes us and what might be its practical application.

[This is a comment on the article "Completely recyclable biopolymers with linear and cyclic topologies via ring-opening polymerization of γ-butyrolactone" by Miao Hong & Eugene Y.-X. Chen published in Nature Chemistry 8, 42–49 (2016) doi:10.1038/nchem.2391 (Received 08 August 2015 Accepted 30 September 2015 Published online 23 November 2015)]

Photo downloaded from Jing Tang/Chen lab. A graphical illustration of the polymer synthesis process: monomers are cooled in order to polymerize; to cycle back, heat is applied. Image credit: http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/chemistry/chemists-fully-recyclable-polymer-03541.html.