Polymer industry global environmental issues

Environmental issues of today are conveniently discussed within two broad classes global issues and regional or local issues. Table 1.2 summarizes the various issues in each category that impact the polymer industry. The following discussion examines each of these environmental concerns in an effort to understand the extent to which the plastics industry potentially contributes to it. Serious environmental problems that do not involve the polymer industry directly, such as the loss of biodiversity or the increase in urban population density, are excluded from the present discussion. 

For biodegradable polymers (industrial), composting was the first environmental process for which specifications were developed. In the nineties, two parallel developments took place in Europe, resulting in the publication of DIN V 54900 in 1998 and EN 13432 in 2000. In spite of some minor differences, both norms were largely similar. After a few years, the DIN norm was made redundant as several international norms (EN and ISO) dealt with the same issue. In addition, in North America a norm was published in 1999 on specifications for (industrial) compostability ASTM D6400. On a global level, ISO 17088 in the field of plastics was published in 2008, while a similar norm for packaging is close to publication and now available under the form of a Draft International Standard (DIS), ISO DIS 18606. 

With an increase in worldwide environmental pollution caused by non-biodegradable polymers, research on the development of biodegradable biorenewable polymers is both necessary and valuable to support global sustainability and to help reduce industry dependence on petroleum and address environmental issue with petrochemicals [1]. Commercially available soy products, such as soy oil, soy protein isolate, soy flour, and soy protein concentrate have attracted much attention because of their abimdance, low cost and good biodegradability [2], Recently, these soy products have been considered environmentally friendly materials for adhesives [3], health care [4,5], plastics [6,7], and various binders [8],... 

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