Business Article

Throughout most of our life we as a society have relied on plastics for almost all types of products from toys to computers. What some people do not know is that the plastic that we make is not biodegradable. It stays around forever which has recently been accused of releasing harmful chemicals into food products.

As an alternative companies are working on biodegradable plastics for our products that don't stay around forever and also do not harm our food products. Currently there are two types of plastics that exist. They are both made from fermented corn sugar. The only set back about these plastics hitting the market is that they are too expensive.

The polylactic acid (PLA) is twenty percent more expensive than regular plastic while the other one called PHA plastic is twice the price of the regular plastic. These plastics are great for the environment, but in order for them to hit the public, consumers require commitment saying they will buy it.

PLA and PHA Plastics in order to decompose require composing. This is an activity that most consumers do not currently practice. There was an experiment that took four biodegradable products and placed them in homemade compost. After twenty-five weeks only one product biodegraded, this indicates that the public is not ready for this type of technology.

Many consumers want environmentally friendly products but only if it is convenient. An example of this is the sun chips bag which consumers complained that it was too loud to they removed it from the market.