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NWP Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists - Hampton Glen, Jacksonville, Florida, USA

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Hampton Glen, Jacksonville, Florida, USA
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parags15



Registered: December 2014
City/Town/Province: jacksonville
Posts: 1
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Plastics are all around us. Every day we use plastics, whether it is at home or the grocery store. But what is a plastic? Plastics are “synthetic materials,” meaning they are artificial. The building blocks of plastics are organic molecules; they generally come from oils or natural gases, but they can also come from corn, wood fibers, or potatoes, thus, making them biodegradable. But what happens to these non-biodegradable plastics; where do they go? Take the plastic bags that one gets at the grocery store as an example. These plastic bags are made from petroleum or natural gases, thus, making plastic bags non-biodegradable. On average, every year Americans throw away 100 billion plastic bags; that is equal to 12 million barrels of oil! Only about 1 percent of the plastic bags today are recycled worldwide, and about 2 percent in the United States. These plastic bags spend its whole life in landfills. Due to the inability to biodegrade, these plastics just keep on piling up, increasing the percentage of plastic waste. This problem needs to be addressed because plastic is spreading everywhere. According to the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, more than a million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die every year from eating plastic waste or getting entangled in plastic that floats in the ocean. The problem is not where the plastic bags end up; it is that they never seem to end. After gathering this information, the project idea formed to end this worldwide problem: create a biodegradable plastic. The research questions that this project focused on was: Is there a way to end this plastic nightmare that keeps gathering up in landfills? Which plastic will biodegrade faster: the corn starch based plastic or the potato based plastic, and how long will it take?


Bioplastics are beginning to show up nowadays with the increasing threat of the non-biodegradable plastics. Corn plastics are starting to look cheaper considering how high oil prices are today. In some states, such as Nebraska, are starting to make corn-based plastics. This is done by creating a resin from corn known as polylactic acid (PLA). PLA is the compostable, meaning it will break down under certain conditions into harmless natural compounds. Producing PLA also uses 65 percent less energy to make compared to regular plastics. It also generates 68 percent fewer greenhouse gases. Though, it probably is costly considering the machinery needed to create these compounds; so this project was designed to try to make an easy way to create these bioplastics because if a decent amount of biodegradable plastic can be made within ten minutes, imagine how much plastic could be made in a factory in one week!


Following what Royte wrote about how Nebraska created bioplastics, the idea formed to make a corn starch based plastic and a potato starch based plastic. The hypotheses of this project are: The corn starch based plastic will biodegrade faster than the potato based plastic. The second hypothesis is: the plastics will biodegrade in one week. These predictions were made because considering the facts of the biodegradable corn resin mentioned earlier, it seems corn starch should work just as fine. Corn starch is starch that is ground from the white endosperm at the heart of a kernel of corn. Corn starch was used as a thickening agent and acted as the main component in the biodegradable plastic made for the project. Also, considering this idea, instead of using ground up potato, potato starch was used.


This experiment was designed to test the rate of biodegradability of a corn starch based plastic and a potato based plastic. The procedure followed in this experiment started with the creation of the two plastics; both were made with equal amounts of glycerin and vinegar, but different main ingredients which were the potato and the corn starch. The corn starch was added to the glycerin and vinegar and mixed in a pot on low heat. On the other hand, the potato starch was not already in starch form. The procedure followed to make the potato starch started with blending water and cubes of potato. Then the blended potato and water was drained in a coffee filter; the starch was what remained and what was used to mix with the glycerin and vinegar. When making these plastics, safety precautions were taken by wearing safety goggles, gloves, and safety precautions were also taken when handling the knife and potato peeler. The materials used in this experiment included: safety goggles, gloves, potatoes, coffee filters, Clabber Girl brand corn starch, Heinz distilled white vinegar, pot, aluminum foil, blender, water, syringe, pure glycerin, silicone pad, wax, paper, glad wrap, spatula, measuring cup, stove, shovel, flags, soil, potato peeler, and green food coloring. After both plastics dried, they were cut into halves; one half of each plastic stayed inside at room temperature and one half of each plastic was buried into the soil outside. Finally, observations and comments were made at the end of each week and written down.


Results from the first attempt of the experiment showed that the corn starch plastic biodegraded faster than the potato starch plastic because the corn starch plastic had fully biodegraded in one week, whereas the potato starch plastic only biodegraded 29% in the first week. A second attempt was conducted with the corn starch plastic, but this time the plastic was checked on after three days and then after four days to track the rate of biodegradability. The potato starch plastic was still the same piece as before and was still continuing its biodegrading process; it did not fully biodegrade until 15 days later from when it was originally put in: Nov. 9. One reason that could explain why it took so long to biodegrade could be because it was taken out so many times, its biodegrading process was interrupted. Similarly, the corn starch plastic did not biodegrade at all in the period of one week because its biodegrading process was interrupted twice when it was taken out of the soil to mark its rate of biodegradability. Because it was interrupted, the plastic did not biodegrade at all. After collecting this data, a new hypothesis formed: the corn starch plastic needs one full week to biodegrade without any disruption. This was tested in attempt three. A third attempt to biodegrade the plastics was conducted where two new pieces of the potato plastic and the corn starch plastic were put it at the same location under the same conditions. One week later, December 1, the corn starch plastic had fully biodegraded and the potato starch plastic was 25% smaller than the original. So, after conducting this third experiment, the conclusion was this: The corn starch-based plastic requires one full week without any disruption to fully biodegrade and the potato starch-based plastic requires about two weeks to biodegrade.

The results showed that the corn starch plastic took about one week to fully biodegrade, while the potato starch plastic required about two weeks to fully biodegrade. Since both plastics were cut into one inch by one inch squares, amounts could be determined for how long it would take to biodegrade other plastic items. For example, to biodegrade a water bottle made out of this corn starch plastic, which has a surface area of about 64 inches2, it would take a little over a year to biodegrade; that is better than thousands or even millions of years! So, as predicted, in the first and third experiment the corn starch plastic did biodegrade faster than the potato starch plastic. Furthermore, whether its corn starch plastic or potato plastic, theses bioplastics biodegrade at a much faster pace than any regular petroleum-based plastic. Also, overall, all the results prove that there is an alternative to addressing the plastic waste problem in the world and the switch to bioplastics needs to be put into effect.


Not all experiments are perfect, thus, humans make mistakes. In this experiment, things certainly went wrong, but that is part of the project. Adults always say, “Learn from your mistakes,” and one normally responds, “Ok,” or “Whatever,” but it is truly vital that one learns from their mistakes to correct themselves in the future. In this experiment, many things did not go the way as planned, but one must learn to adjust to results and work their way around it. First of the many errors occurred right in the beginning when the plastics were made. The plastic mixture was not stirred enough so it was not hard enough. Furthermore, when the plastic “liquid” dried it cracked. Also, it took four times in this experiment before a non-cracked plastic was made for the corn starch plastic. It turns out that silicone pads are the way to go. Due to the bumps and folds in the aluminum foil, the plastic cracked. Having this knowledge, the idea formed to use a flat surface to dry the next plastic: a silicone pad, which did work! Also, another error that occurred when creating both of the plastics was that mixture was not on the heat for as long as needed. Though, despite the many errors, this project succeeded in creating a biodegradable plastic.
Date: December 22, 2014 Views: 4664 File size: 9.5kb, 57.0kb : 607 x 337
Hours Volunteered: 50
Authors Age & Age Range of Volunteers: 17
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