Situation in other regions of the world

The significant increase in plastics consumption is also observed in other regions of the world. For example, rapid industrialization and economic development in Singapore have caused a 

In Australia, the annual plastics consumption has increased from 1336386 in 1997 to 1521394 toimes in 2003, whereas the total recycling rate of plastics has increased from 7.0% to 12.4% [7]. It is notewortly that plastics packaging recycling in 2003 was 134905 tonnes, which is 20.5% of packaging consumption during a year. 

The growing environmental awareness and new rules and regulations, as well as new trends in solid waste management, have led scientists to increase activities on the design of compostable polymer materials that easify degrade under well-defined environmental conditions. 

Compostable polymer materials - definitions, structures and methods of preparation 

2 Other compostable polymers from renewable resomces 25 

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